The tyrannical human

In David Eagleman's book, "Incognito", he says that evolution is more intelligent than anything else. He may be right for one very important reason: evolution works with the principle popularly called the survival of the fittest. Within this program, multiple entities engage with each other and their environs in a struggle toward adaptation and, ultimately, survival without aiming themselves at it directly. In other words, the struggle for survival is woven into their lives in terms of needs like food, shelter and dominance, and at no point are they conscious of their march toward becoming a naturally sustainable variant of their species, whichever species that may be.

That said, consider the results of just the last million years of evolution—in flora as well as in fauna. Plants, at their microscopic scale all the same, are of various kinds because of the various conditions they exist in all around the world. Animals have learnt how to hunt and forage more efficiently. Humans have hunted, gathered, civilized themselves, and taught themselves. With intelligence serving as the sole difference, we have set ourselves apart from other animals in various ways. Intelligent thought gave us the capacity to think differently, to remember and to evoke, to mimic, reason, understand, socialize, and defend. Then, at some point, we believed we were equipped enough to simply attempt to recreate the intelligence that nature birthed in our form, and in doing so, we found that we were but ill-equipped.

Intelligence has been described in various ways, and they can all be summarized by the ability of intelligent life-forms to reason. While reasoning, we assess the problem statement, break it down into individual components that each make some sense, understand how they work with each other to create the problem, isolate the resources we may need to arrive at a solution, and then continuously deploy and eliminate our options until we arrive at the answer. In retrospect, isn't this how evolution works? Even though there may seem to exist only a few species of animals, nature contrives to create factions within each species divided solely on the lines of biological specifications, and lets these factions fight against each other until the best answer is arrived at.

Is this technique of combative problem-solving what makes evolution so intelligent? Is combative problem-solving the key to progress and evolution? Has anyone ever heard of cooperative problem-solving as being very intelligent, too? When we are stymied by what seems to be a complex problem, we often "put our heads together" to arrive at a solution. In that case, are we really cooperating? I don't think we are. When we "put our heads together", we increase the amount of intelligence that is available to assess each option before it is eliminated, in the process simply reducing the time taken to arrive at a solution. Why must we compete for the same resources in order for the best of us to become established, as it were? Why can't we simply identify the best traits in each one of us and then strive toward them?

That nature has no way of identifying, by itself, the best traits in each one of us could be an incentive for this process of elimination to exist. Being in no position to identify what we need to become, evolution's survival program is genius because it lets us define what we need to become and subsequently ensures that only those of us who have become it to survive. However, the question remains: does intelligence work the same way? Now, instead of saying humankind is the pinnacle of all evolution, let us assume that intelligence is. Being born out of the survival program like every other living thing on the planet, is intelligence, too, subject to the command of combative problem-solving? Does our faculty that assists with reasoning and logical assimilation naturally offer competing points of view for each problem? Or, more importantly, does our faculty that assists with learning and cognition develop in any sense when we engage in a dialectic with ourselves?

Every consideration, ultimately, boils down to a resolution of disagreement. When there is an absence of consensus, is consensus brought upon us simply by the elimination of the dissenting parties? Remove combative problem-solving from the process of problem-solving in general and disagreement becomes meaningless. When cooperative problem-solving is implemented, dissent is integrated into the problem-solving process, making it more democratic. However, the dissent itself is not eliminated, and cannot remain until the end or we would never have a "tipping in favour" of something.

[caption id="attachment_22938" align="alignleft" width="150" caption="Fractals display an internal symmetry, where the shape of the innermost branch is geometrically similar to the shape of the whole - much like intelligence and evolution?"][/caption]

Returning to the larger plot: it seems as if the way we think mimics the way evolution happens. Every time we reason, we deploy an algorithm that considers multiple points of view and then selects one after letting the two points of view battle it out with reference to a frame, a logical statement that we hold to be true. Does this mean combative problem-solving is hardwired into the human brain? Is that the signature of intelligence? And considering evolution is what gave birth to intelligence, is intelligence's hallmark also its creation-machine? Are we a composition of multitudes that cooperate, somehow, to give rise to what we perceive as being firm decisions? Is it at all possible that we can learn without "combative" thinking?

Let us take a simple case-study. When humans build robots to solve problems intelligently (in some part), how do the programmers know what the best way to solve a problem is? There are two options here. The first is that "the best way to solve a program is the best known way to solve it." In this case, the robot will borrow, and suffer, from the programmer's knowledge of the problem and the set of tools that are available to construct a solution. The second option is that "the best way to solve a program is to build into it the tools with which to construct different solutions and also the tools required to make an appropriate selection." A robot that entombs the former logic is called a machine and a robot that entombs the latter logic is termed as being artificially intelligent (AI). (Then again, AI also suffers from an inherited deficiency in terms of the programmer's knowledge of his "tools", but that is too deep a depth to plumb right now.)

Therefore, the creation of intelligence seems to lie within the capacity of thinking up solutions. Instead of asking what the best way to solve a problem is, it seems we must ask if there are different ways to solve a problem. Then, it is only a matter of pitting one solution against another and testing for greatest compatibility. However, even at this juncture, I can't help but think how much life would be different if cooperative problem-solving was the order of the day, if instead of eliminating different points of view and therefore deciding for ourselves what we must strive toward, we included different points of view and decided what we must strive against.

Or is that the ultimate goal?

Writers and whores

The Latin word ‘prostituta’ is the etymological root of the word ‘prostitute’; the former is in turn a composition of ‘pro’ (forward) and ‘statuere’ (to cause, to effect). Therefore, the literal translation of the composition would be “to place forward”, “to proffer”.

That being said, I will now assume the liberty to dissociate the word from its meaning in order to elaborate on its other domains of applicability. By virtue of being the world’s oldest profession, the coinage of said label for the practice calls into question the very nature of prostitution owing to the seeming semantic incongruence.

For instance, the offering of sexual services in return for monetary compensation hardly deserves the vague conference of such a term that has acquired any connotations in a non-autotelic manner.

In that case, a simpler recourse could be suggested that the word be replaced with one more, in a manner of speaking, “meaningful”. However, that is not the purpose of this discourse.

Now, consider the nature of these sexual services in whose regard the aforementioned connotations exist.

If not for the indignity associated with trading such commodities, the essential transfer is quite similar to one governed by literature by way of the writing and reading of books.

Let me rephrase, rather paraphrase, the question: what is the difference between two trades, one of which allows for the performance of sexual activities in return for money, while the other allows for the exhibition of literary skills in return for money?

Further, if congruence can be established, within the bounds of reason, between the performance of sexual services and the exhibition of literary skills, would the congruence imply that authorship and prostitution are congruent, too?

First off, it is important to address the purpose of a sexual service, namely gratification.

This gratification may be for the purpose of satiating an opinion that a reward is necessary in order to appease a growing sense of disorientation on a “hard day‘s night”.

In other words, the sexual gratification awarded by a sex worker becomes the reward for some work performed, the representation of which, in this context, is the money paid to avail that gratification.

At other times, sexual services may be procured as an occupation of relief, with the same, rather similar, contractual mechanics.

Similarly, what is the “kind” of gratification received from, say, reading a good book? It must be noted that only if the contractual mechanics are different from those of the procurement of a sexual service will the gratification received from engaging in a sexual activity differ from the gratification received by reading a book. However, such an argument excludes a purely “qualitative” contention, which will be addressed later.

The effects of reading a good book can be summarized by an important aesthetic dimension the act of reading proffers: by the employment of a language that may or may not represent (through references) the material world, literary texts provide an impression that the reader is wrapped in one that touches him or her in the lightest possible ways, making him or her feel a part of the world, of its objects, and of its bodies.

In keeping with the truism that artistic expression is a collateral of man’s search for meaning, it can be concluded that the creation of an artistic product is a form of declaration, one that establishes some (although fixed) meaning in the eyes of the artist, and the subscription of which is established by a person who conforms to that system and character of thought, the conclusion of which is the proof of its semantic validity.

Therefore, the procurement of a book, a journal, or any product whose contents include something of literary value, represents a gratification received by the purchase through the validation of certain doubts expressed by him or her.

In such a case, is not the writer prostituting his or her skills for money?

How is this trade not congruent with that of prostitution?

In furtherance of this discussion, if a defence is put forth that establishes incongruence of the contracts by calling to attention that our bodies are all that we “enter this world” with (akin to the definition of a system in the context of thermodynamic analysis), and that prostitutes (in the modern connotation of the term) debase the dignity of the same institution that is the source of a state’s constitution as well as definition, I would point out that the same body is also the source of our literary skills, and in corroboration of this position, I would nominate the contributions of Noam Chomsky and, more recently, Steven Pinker.

Thus, in conclusion of this discussion: a reasonable parallelism exists between the creation of literature and the performance of sexual services while, surprisingly, there exists an incongruence of perspectives, especially in the jurisprudential domain (if a constructivist approach is given prominence).

Writers and whores

The Latin word ‘prostituta’ is the etymological root of the word ‘prostitute’; the former is in turn a composition of ‘pro’ (forward) and ‘statuere’ (to cause, to effect). Therefore, the literal translation of the composition would be “to place forward”, “to proffer”.

That being said, I will now assume the liberty to dissociate the word from its meaning in order to elaborate on its other domains of applicability. By virtue of being the world’s oldest profession, the coinage of said label for the practice calls into question the very nature of prostitution owing to the seeming semantic incongruence.

For instance, the offering of sexual services in return for monetary compensation hardly deserves the vague conference of such a term that has acquired any connotations in a non-autotelic manner.

In that case, a simpler recourse could be suggested that the word be replaced with one more, in a manner of speaking, “meaningful”. However, that is not the purpose of this discourse.

Now, consider the nature of these sexual services in whose regard the aforementioned connotations exist.

If not for the indignity associated with trading such commodities, the essential transfer is quite similar to one governed by literature by way of the writing and reading of books.

Let me rephrase, rather paraphrase, the question: what is the difference between two trades, one of which allows for the performance of sexual activities in return for money, while the other allows for the exhibition of literary skills in return for money?

Further, if congruence can be established, within the bounds of reason, between the performance of sexual services and the exhibition of literary skills, would the congruence imply that authorship and prostitution are congruent, too?

First off, it is important to address the purpose of a sexual service, namely gratification.

This gratification may be for the purpose of satiating an opinion that a reward is necessary in order to appease a growing sense of disorientation on a “hard day‘s night”.

In other words, the sexual gratification awarded by a sex worker becomes the reward for some work performed, the representation of which, in this context, is the money paid to avail that gratification.

At other times, sexual services may be procured as an occupation of relief, with the same, rather similar, contractual mechanics.

Similarly, what is the “kind” of gratification received from, say, reading a good book? It must be noted that only if the contractual mechanics are different from those of the procurement of a sexual service will the gratification received from engaging in a sexual activity differ from the gratification received by reading a book. However, such an argument excludes a purely “qualitative” contention, which will be addressed later.

The effects of reading a good book can be summarized by an important aesthetic dimension the act of reading proffers: by the employment of a language that may or may not represent (through references) the material world, literary texts provide an impression that the reader is wrapped in one that touches him or her in the lightest possible ways, making him or her feel a part of the world, of its objects, and of its bodies.

In keeping with the truism that artistic expression is a collateral of man’s search for meaning, it can be concluded that the creation of an artistic product is a form of declaration, one that establishes some (although fixed) meaning in the eyes of the artist, and the subscription of which is established by a person who conforms to that system and character of thought, the conclusion of which is the proof of its semantic validity.

Therefore, the procurement of a book, a journal, or any product whose contents include something of literary value, represents a gratification received by the purchase through the validation of certain doubts expressed by him or her.

In such a case, is not the writer prostituting his or her skills for money?

How is this trade not congruent with that of prostitution?

In furtherance of this discussion, if a defence is put forth that establishes incongruence of the contracts by calling to attention that our bodies are all that we “enter this world” with (akin to the definition of a system in the context of thermodynamic analysis), and that prostitutes (in the modern connotation of the term) debase the dignity of the same institution that is the source of a state’s constitution as well as definition, I would point out that the same body is also the source of our literary skills, and in corroboration of this position, I would nominate the contributions of Noam Chomsky and, more recently, Steven Pinker.

Thus, in conclusion of this discussion: a reasonable parallelism exists between the creation of literature and the performance of sexual services while, surprisingly, there exists an incongruence of perspectives, especially in the jurisprudential domain (if a constructivist approach is given prominence).

One solipsistic half

I wish I had something unwritten lying around somewhere: that way, I would only have to find it to know that I will have written something soon. Embossed with the faint shapes of letters strung together as unborn words, I ought to still have the freedom to decide what I want to write about; the moment I have, however, I will only be informed of how it is to be put down. Like a dog on a leash—neither loose nor tight—that accompanies its walker around the neighbourhood, through alleys and lanes, avenues and boulevards, all the while neither being lead nor being goaded, I must be turned to fill up the pages one after another knowing neither the futility of my will nor the successes of my endeavour. Does there exist such a magical manuscript that I may only discover it? Perhaps there does, from the moment I finish a sentence and sit back, pondering upon the text to follow—continuity of essence, enrichment of character, the like—the finished work flashes before my eyes, sculpted to perfection by a visceral sense that pierces together experience and desire, and I reach forward to touch the phantasm, aware full well of the disappointment that awaits as is due its illusory existence, and so pick the pen up once more, knowing what must definitely follow. Ha! Would that my mind was so pleasurably dual—nay!—and I suffer already the pains of Peter's theft, the vulgarity of Paul's profits...

Microcosm of blasphemies

Smoke and Nebula have met once! I've come to believe that all smoke and all nebulae have some depth-any amount of depth that is some-and of Smoke's depth, I'm intrigued. He is rich, he is happily settled, perhaps happily joined, too-however small the chance of that may be-and has the one Cloud from that one meeting. Whenever we converse, he reveals not much; he is quick to crack a joke, he is quick to sprout in laughter, he is quick to philanthropy, and his demeanour only tells me he gives away so that he may receive in return the right to condescension. Agreed, altruism is a false virtue; nevertheless, Smoke is, by the looks of it, plastic: the veritable subject of any inquisition on the foibles of human nature, a true man-not the manly man, but the one who has known damage and, thereafter, recovered to completion, a true man.

Rusty and Sharded

Before I began writing this, I thought to myself how I would begin this entry. That's when it struck me that this is my diary; I can write whatever I want to write - and so I began this entry! Haha! It is difficult to understand why people pour out their sorrows in thousands of words but joy comes out in not more than a hundred words. If it weren't for a "special" relationship I believe I have with the words I put down, I wouldn't think words are oppressed that way. Would they rebel? In a world of words, what would the rebellion be like? Will the world "bloody" be draped across a thousand pages of their chronicles? Perhaps, but words are often used together with the logic that comes with using them - not grammatical but the one accompanying the justice (or judicial capacity) of reason.

He was a coward who said a picture was worth a thousand words; he was a coward because he couldn't bring himself to concede that each image is worth hundreds of thousands of words; he was a coward because he chose to remain shielded behind the idea of progress when he could have stepped out and up to realize the continuum of realities that spanned the gap between "the now" and the future. The sheer volume of information is stupendous. How can you stop at a thousand words? The "aphorism" itself seems like a bit of an irony: if the sayer was going for a metaphor, then saying "thousand words" is equivalent to asserting that a picture is worth a million words, a billion words, a zillion words... if you can't stop, then why put them together at all? A picture's a picture and a word's a word; let them bloody be! You don't have to understand everything for it to be a continuum. In fact, if you did, it wouldn't be a continuum! Think about it! I use a million words and, just like that, someone adds or removes a word to give the picture a completely different verbal form.

Anyway, there's one thing I don't understand at all. How can people not think? How is is possible that people haven't thought about of the things I've thought about? How in the Lord's name is it possible for a mind to be at rest? The mental sophistication is so easy to acquire that it's laughable! In turn, thus, it would mean that such people have probably visited all those realms of possibilities and still choose the verboten-addicted reality around us. Guano.

I don't believe that; it's too wonderful an explanation... and so is the "still mind". Why isn't everyone as curious as I am? Why can't the best engineers do with machines and logic-constructs what even an unaccomplished writer such as I can do with words? Or have I not seen it? I don't think such things would've escaped me. And before you, you Faustus!, begin to defend yourself, mind: I will always hold that logic has its own exotic designs. Only yesterday, I had stumbled across this site/page called "But Does It Float", and behold! What an awe-inspiring collection of images! Short descriptions here and there told me most of it was either avant-garde or "deconstructivist". "Deconstructivist"? Really? Why can't you name something with whatever comes first to mind (on an average) amongst the first thousand people who see it? By that suggestion, I'm going to call avant-gardes "rusty" and deconstructivists "sharded".

Anyway, there were hundreds and hundreds of images on display. At first sight, they were ALL excellent. After a few minutes, once the standard of excellence's been raised to accommodate the findings, about 30% of it is simply stupendous and the rest is... well, stupendous. Talk about logic and its designs! Only the truly insane can manage a recreation of chaos, and even then, sporadic manifestations of logic will become observable. Rusty and sharded both captured certain moods splendidly, and by "capture", I mean the freeze-frame trapping of the mind's infinite form-dance. By looking at the perfect painting, you suddenly become aware that your mind is a small individuation of the entire universe that the painting encompassed. That moment of oneness is truly fascinating; moreover, it feels like a release. Imagine an obscurely curved pipe which must be inserted into a bigger shaft; the engineer twists it and turns it and jams it, but when the orientations of the cross-sections match, the pipe just flows in without a complaint.

It's a world sans friction.

Sometimes, the banishing of logic itself seems like a kind of logic, and when you witness a creation fashioned on that basis, you know that rebellion is the order of the day. Literature, I now believe, has a similar, if not the same purpose: some liberation. That liberation, obtained via art of any form, I will always recognize with the individuation - the "charitocratic" vessel within which we sail, and the mind that enables such a journey is therefore not within us but without, at least in that moment. In hindsight, I recall having simplified the writings of Abhinavagupta for a friend. While Abhinava called that mind-universe coupling "God", I choose to call it the mind's awareness of itself, the ultimate permission to think, to keep thinking, to think whatever.

Rusty and Sharded

Before I began writing this, I thought to myself how I would begin this entry. That's when it struck me that this is my diary; I can write whatever I want to write - and so I began this entry! Haha! It is difficult to understand why people pour out their sorrows in thousands of words but joy comes out in not more than a hundred words. If it weren't for a "special" relationship I believe I have with the words I put down, I wouldn't think words are oppressed that way. Would they rebel? In a world of words, what would the rebellion be like? Will the world "bloody" be draped across a thousand pages of their chronicles? Perhaps, but words are often used together with the logic that comes with using them - not grammatical but the one accompanying the justice (or judicial capacity) of reason.

He was a coward who said a picture was worth a thousand words; he was a coward because he couldn't bring himself to concede that each image is worth hundreds of thousands of words; he was a coward because he chose to remain shielded behind the idea of progress when he could have stepped out and up to realize the continuum of realities that spanned the gap between "the now" and the future. The sheer volume of information is stupendous. How can you stop at a thousand words? The "aphorism" itself seems like a bit of an irony: if the sayer was going for a metaphor, then saying "thousand words" is equivalent to asserting that a picture is worth a million words, a billion words, a zillion words... if you can't stop, then why put them together at all? A picture's a picture and a word's a word; let them bloody be! You don't have to understand everything for it to be a continuum. In fact, if you did, it wouldn't be a continuum! Think about it! I use a million words and, just like that, someone adds or removes a word to give the picture a completely different verbal form.

Anyway, there's one thing I don't understand at all. How can people not think? How is is possible that people haven't thought about of the things I've thought about? How in the Lord's name is it possible for a mind to be at rest? The mental sophistication is so easy to acquire that it's laughable! In turn, thus, it would mean that such people have probably visited all those realms of possibilities and still choose the verboten-addicted reality around us. Guano.

I don't believe that; it's too wonderful an explanation... and so is the "still mind". Why isn't everyone as curious as I am? Why can't the best engineers do with machines and logic-constructs what even an unaccomplished writer such as I can do with words? Or have I not seen it? I don't think such things would've escaped me. And before you, you Faustus!, begin to defend yourself, mind: I will always hold that logic has its own exotic designs. Only yesterday, I had stumbled across this site/page called "But Does It Float", and behold! What an awe-inspiring collection of images! Short descriptions here and there told me most of it was either avant-garde or "deconstructivist". "Deconstructivist"? Really? Why can't you name something with whatever comes first to mind (on an average) amongst the first thousand people who see it? By that suggestion, I'm going to call avant-gardes "rusty" and deconstructivists "sharded".

Anyway, there were hundreds and hundreds of images on display. At first sight, they were ALL excellent. After a few minutes, once the standard of excellence's been raised to accommodate the findings, about 30% of it is simply stupendous and the rest is... well, stupendous. Talk about logic and its designs! Only the truly insane can manage a recreation of chaos, and even then, sporadic manifestations of logic will become observable. Rusty and sharded both captured certain moods splendidly, and by "capture", I mean the freeze-frame trapping of the mind's infinite form-dance. By looking at the perfect painting, you suddenly become aware that your mind is a small individuation of the entire universe that the painting encompassed. That moment of oneness is truly fascinating; moreover, it feels like a release. Imagine an obscurely curved pipe which must be inserted into a bigger shaft; the engineer twists it and turns it and jams it, but when the orientations of the cross-sections match, the pipe just flows in without a complaint.

It's a world sans friction.

Sometimes, the banishing of logic itself seems like a kind of logic, and when you witness a creation fashioned on that basis, you know that rebellion is the order of the day. Literature, I now believe, has a similar, if not the same purpose: some liberation. That liberation, obtained via art of any form, I will always recognize with the individuation - the "charitocratic" vessel within which we sail, and the mind that enables such a journey is therefore not within us but without, at least in that moment. In hindsight, I recall having simplified the writings of Abhinavagupta for a friend. While Abhinava called that mind-universe coupling "God", I choose to call it the mind's awareness of itself, the ultimate permission to think, to keep thinking, to think whatever.