RadicalStu Blog

Ask Steve Pavlina

Steve Pavlina has been doing a sort-of agony aunt type series.  Here are a couple of highlights.

Ask Steve - Staying Conscious While Under Attack
How can I maintain high self-esteem in light of frequent negative external feedback? I try to maintain a positive attitude, but I’m so easily brought down by those around me.

Ask Steve - Recommended Reading
Some of Steve Pavlina's favourite books.

Learning Philosophy Lesson 3

Last week, we had looked at principles; how the wise man will be driven by timeless principles and not by temporary selfish desires.  We looked at the most important principle of all for learning wisdom; self knowledge and we talked about what we meant by the self; the drives, memories, emotions and knowledge that make up a cohesive identity.

This week we started to look at the difference between knowledge and information. Information is not enough to actually succeed in doing something; knowledge comes from applying that information and getting feedback.  We cannot be told how to drive a car and simply go and do it successfully.  We need to practice and get feedback from our attempts. 

Feedback always helps us to assess the information that we have.  It is like the scientific method; we have a theory and we test that theory by performing actions and evaluating the results to see if they are consistent with the theory.  In philosophy, this theory will often come in the form of teachings, at other times, it will be developed from introspections or other observations.  However it comes to us, though, we should not simply accept it; we should apply the knowledge and observe the results to see if they theory makes sense in light of the evidence.

There are different levels of awareness.  This was presented as a gradient with from the lowest levels of awareness to the highest levels.

    Higher consciousness
    Fully awake
    Waking sleep
    Dream
    Deep sleep

In deep sleep we have only the most limited awareness; it can take a lot to wake us and we are generally unaware of events.

When we are dreaming, we have more awareness. In particular, we will have awareness of the world that we imagine while dreaming.  We may even be aware of the fact that we are dreaming, a “lucid dream“.  We can also be influenced by external events; an alarm clock ringing while we are in the dream can be incorporated into our dream.  In general, this is still  a very limited form of awareness.

“Waking sleep” is the state that we are in much of the time where we are not fully aware of our surroundings and perform in an habitual manner.  As I understand this, you are simply on autopilot; performing actions without thinking about them.  For example, it is possible to make a car journey and when you arrive, be unaware of the route you had taken or have any memory of the journey.  The mechanical process takes up very little of your thought process and you may, or may not, be occupied with other thoughts.  This does not present a problem with many aspects of life but you can find yourself living on autopilot when making import decisions; not really thinking about them but simply going with your first thought without examining the reasons.  You may also be particularly suggestible when in this state as you will have a tendency to just “go with the flow”.  Often you can get into this state when you are distracted or worried by something.

When you are fully awake you are aware of your surroundings, you are alert, receptive (but not uncritically) and generally will have a feeling of energy.  You will be able to appreciate the beauty around you and will be capable of making rational decisions.  You are not sleeping at any level and are fully in touch with your senses.

Higher consciousness is a more difficult concept for me; one that will take lots of thought.  As far as I understand it, you have an awareness of not just yourself and your senses, but also of your emotions, the wider universe and “spirituality”.  Some quotes should help to illustrate this.

There is but one Reason. The mind that made the world is not one mind, but the mind.

And every work of art is a more or less pure manifestation of the same. Therefore we arrive at this conclusion, which I offer as a confirmation of the whole view, that the delight which a work of art affords, seems to arise from our recognizing in it the mind that formed Nature, again in active operation.

Herein is the explanation of the analogies, which exist in all the arts. They are the re-appearance of one mind, working in many materials to many temporary ends. Raphael paints wisdom, Handel sings it, Phidias carves it, Shakspeare writes it, Wren builds it, Columbus sails it, Luther preaches it, Washington arms it, Watt mechanizes it. Painting was called " silent poetry," and poetry " speaking painting." The laws of each art are convertible into the laws of every other.
- Society and Solitude, Chapter III Art: Ralph Waldo Emerson

Emerson appears to be talking about God and the fact that all of nature is an aspect of God.  We recognise aspects of Godhood in the great works of art; the better the work of art the closer to God it brings us.  The idea here is that we can experience a higher consciousness by contemplating great works of art; we are brought into close contact with the one overriding presence of which we are all a part.

To see a world in a grain of sand
And a heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand
And eternity in an hour.
- Auguries of  Innocence: William Blake

Blake makes me think of the situation where we can contemplate something very simple and use our imagination to expand our consciousness to encompass much wider areas.  So, we can look at a grain of sand, know about sand and its place in the world and imagine a whole world; we can take the beauty of a flower and image the beauty of heaven; we can hold something insignificant in our hand and use our minds to encompass an infinity of other images and concepts; and we can stretch time taking us out of ourselves; live an eternity in an hour.  With each of these things we use our imaginations to extrapolate from a simple beginning to stretch our consciousness.

Love does not dwell on the gifts received but turns directly to their giver.  Love knows no measure but exceeds all measure.  Love feels no burden; it makes light of labour and strives to do more than it is able.  Love considers nothing impossible and sees itself equal to every task.
Love, therefore, can do all things and finds itself successful where others, without love, often faint and fall prostrate.
Love keeps watch, and even while resting it sleeps not; it may be tired but not fatigued; it may feel under pressure, but not crushed; it may be afraid but not terrified.  Like a living flame and burning torch, love always makes its way upward into the open air and blazes forth.
- Imitation of Christ, Bk3, ch 5: Thomas a Kempis

This is about divine love but we can think about is as love in general and it is certainly recognisable.  Love is certainly an altered state of consciousness and it has the property of making you concerned for someone else’s happiness but I am not entirely convinced that it has the “broadening” effect that other descriptions of higher consciousness have.  To some extent, it seems to me, that the other quotes suggest that getting out of yourself is one of the aspects of higher consciousness; perhaps love can be here as well.

I feel I have got a bit of a better handle on this concept than when I started typing this but there is still lots of thinking to be done.

The study of wisdom allows us to see many of the ideas that have stood the test of time.  The Greek philosophers were the originators of Western philosophy.  Indeed, western philosophy has been described as “footnotes to Plato”.  Plato, himself, is the heart of Greek philosophy; particularly in his writings about Socrates.  It is not obvious how much of the teachings ascribed to Socrates were really his and how much he was simply used as a character by Plato, but we can probably assume that they certainly made an excellent teaching team.  In the Phaedo, Plato describes Socrates last days after he had been sentenced to death.  Socrates idea of the soul is brought out in great detail using the characteristic Socratic method; asking questions of a student to let the student make the argument himself.

The climax of the argument can be summed up in the following extract:

And were we not saying long ago that the soul when using the body as an instrument of perception, that is to say, when using the sense of sight or hearing or some other sense (for the meaning of perceiving through the body is perceiving through the senses)-were we not saying that the soul too is then dragged by the body into the region of the changeable, and wanders and is confused; the world spins round her, and she is like a drunkard when under their influence?

Very true.
But when returning into herself she reflects; then she passes into the realm of purity, and eternity, and immortality, and unchangeableness, which are her kindred, and with them she ever lives, when she is by herself and is not let or hindered; then she ceases from her erring ways, and being in communion with the unchanging is unchanging. And this state of the soul is called wisdom?
- Phaedo: Plato

Plato (or Socrates) describes a state of being which he regarded as “wisdom”.  This state is where the soul (or the self) is not caught up with the body; there is a separation and the soul is contemplating itself.  I think that the group got a bit caught up in the language used here; “soul” is a very loaded word.  I think that the main point is the self reflection; the examining of life that Socrates said made life worth living.  This examination requires some sort of discipline to separate the soul from the body; we would call this meditation.

This self examination should allow us to evaluate the habits and beliefs that we have build up over our life.  We should try to change harmful behaviours and wrong beliefs.  Confucius said that it is easier today to triumph over evil habits than it will be tomorrow.  When we identify something that we want to change, the longer we leave the change, the more ingrained will be the habit so we should start as soon as possible.

The Constant Gardener

My favourite film of last year was The Constant Gardener; an excellent antidote to some of the unrealistically cheery Hollywood blockbusters that we are mostly bombarded with. 

This is the story of a British diplomat, Ralph Fiennes as Justin Quayle and his political-activist wife, Tessa (Rachel Weisz).  Tessa campaigns against the policies of a large drug company in Kenya and ends up dead.  The, basically, apolitical Justin sets out in search of answers and finds a wholly different Africa from  the one that he experiences in his day to day work as a diplomat.  His trail of discovery is wonderfully described right up until the disturbing ending.

Based on the John Le Carre novel of the same name, this film combines fantastic cinematography of the Kenyan wildlife and human situation with a complex, realistic conspiracy thriller.  Thoughtful political insights nestling happily alongside all of the elements of a taught thriller make this a cinematic triumph for Brazilian director Fernando Meirelles.

I recommend it without reservation.  Watch it now.

Codex by Lev Grossman

In my life, I have probably read several thousand books and once started, I, almost invariably, will continue on to the end.  I try to read books that I think I will enjoy and it is not all that common that I don’t.  Sometimes a book will come along that is out of the ordinary, sometimes exceptionally good; sometimes exceptionally bad.  Codex is exceptionally bad; so bad I did not finish it.  In fact, I only made it about a third of the way through before deciding that I would be better reading almost anything than this.

The back cover reads well.  If you want to enjoy the book, don’t open it.  The major problem with it is the lack of anything to actually capture your attention.  The main character, Edward Wozny, is just boring; boringly written, boringly plotted.  He has a boring life and knows boring people.  He gets involved in a “plot” that reaches new heights of inanity and irrelevance to anything that would interest anyone in knowing anything about this character. 

The plot consists of the Wozny sorting a collection of books and playing a fairly poor sounding video game.  No really, that’s it.  That’s all that happens.  To give it the benefit of the doubt, it is only the first third of the book that I read; perhaps something else happens.  But, I don’t care and neither will you.

Recent Links #5

BibleGateway.com: A searchable online Bible in over 35 languages and 50 versions.
The ideal place to research passages to make the religious look hypocritical or stupid

Scotsman.com Sport - Wallace Mercer dies
Our office landlord and former Hearts chairman dies of cancer.

Learning Philosophy - Lesson 2

The philosophy class that we are taking runs on a Saturday morning at 10am.  This should be pretty convenient for us but this morning we managed to arrive late.  Penny’s car died on her way home last night.  She was too busy panicking to ask what a Wise person would do.  This morning, I had to visit the garage so we arrived at the class 15 minutes late to find Martin all alone; no one else had turned up.  We started anyway and Margaret also arrived 10 minutes later so it was not quite as alive a debate as last week but interesting none the less.

We first of all refreshed what we had covered last week with Martin emphasising that this was “practical philosophy”, so the point is to apply the lessons and live a better life.  I asked about the “State of our being”, a phrase that was used in last week‘s hand-out.  Martin explained this as about how we feel, a state that varies from time to time.  We may be feeling stressed, relaxed, curious, lethargic etc.

Martin then introduced the  subject of principles.  These being beliefs or modes of behaviour that influence how we lead our life.  The actions of a Wise Man are guided by lasting principles rather than by selfish or fleeting concerns.

Examples of this type of principle include:
1. Do to others as you would have others do to you.
2. Live honestly, harm no man and render to each his due.

The most important principle for wisdom is that of self-knowledge.  Doubt about your self is reflected everywhere.  This principle is reflected in many philosophical texts.  For example:
1. Whoever knows essentially his own nature, can know also that of other men and can penetrate into the nature of beings.
2. This above all: to thine ownself be true, And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man.

This principle begs the question of “what is ‘self’?”  We each have different attributes that are displayed at different times in our lives, when we are in different roles and when we are in different states of being.  What is constant between these?  We should learn to appreciate that which is unchanging in our selves.  What is the essence of our selves?  Part of this is made up of our identity.  Our identity is not simply formed by our experiences; there is also a part made from our innate nature; our genetic heritage. 

This is illustrated by the tale of a lion cub that is brought up as a sheep.  He behaves exactly like a sheep while that is his only frame of reference.  One day, an adult lion comes along and roars at the flock of sheep.  They all run off, but the lion stays; it recognises an affinity for this other creature; maybe just a similarity of form, but maybe a deeper affinity.  The lion cub follows the lion, is taken under the influence of the lion and from that point on acts like a lion.

Real life examples of this sort of thing seem to show that the lion cub could never really be one or the other.  It will always be different; never fully part of either group.  This reminded me very much of Stranger in a Strange Land.  The human child, Mike, is brought up by an alien race and adopts their frame of reference.  When “rescued” and brought back to human society, he struggles to make the adjustment.  He does not feel part of the human race but eventually recognises that he is more human than alien.

Another important principle is that of neither accepting nor rejecting but putting into practice.  Ideas that are put to you should not be dismissed out of hand; neither should they be accepted uncritically.  Instead, they should be tried out and the results observed. 

An example of this is the story from Bede’s History of the English Church and People.  When Augustine came to England to preach to the natives, the Saxon King, Ethelbert, listened to what he had to say and did not accept or reject it.  Instead, acting for his kingdom, he allowed Augustine to preach and evaluated the results.  It is important to observe the results of an action before you can evaluate a theory.  This is the basis of the scientific method but is also vital in the evaluations performed by the wise.

This is related to the principle of having an open mind.  Hear with an open mind; apply your learning and observe the effect.

Nan-in, a Japanese master during the Meiji era (1868-1912), received a university professor who came to inquire about Zen.

Nan-in served Tea. He poured his visitor's cup full, and then kept on pouring.
The professor watched the overflow until he no longer could restrain himself. "It is overfull. No more will go in!"

"Like this cup," Nan-in said, "you are full of your own opinions and speculations. How can I show you Zen unless you first empty your cup?"

We all have “opinions and speculations”; most of what we do and think is by habit.  We should examine our habits and bring our reason to bear on them.  Are they reasonable? 

We should also continue to ask what a wise man or woman would do.

And keep practicing the exercise from lesson 1.

Stranger in a Strange Land

There are some experiences that everyone should have in adolescence.  Things like your first political thoughts, a re-appraisal of your parents’ attitude to religion and, of course, your first experiments with masturbation.  Robert A. Heinlein’s “Stranger in a Strange Land” covers all of those themes and should also be an integral part of any adolescent’s experience.

I first read it in my late teens and it made a profound impression on me, opening up a world where things could be different from society‘s norm.  It focused many of the questions that were playing on my mind at that time although I came to different conclusions on many issues to the author’s surrogate, Jubal Harshaw.

First published in 1961, it caused a sensation with it’s controversial spin on religion, politics and sexuality.  Despite being a commercially successful author, Heinlein had to shorten the book by 60,000 words before a publisher would take a risk on it.  Forty five years later, a lot has changed in our society but there are still plenty of people who will be shocked by what is Heinlein’s most ambitious work.

The basic story is of a man, Valentine Michael Smith, raised by an alien species, who is returned to Earth.  It follows his adventures as he gets to grips with the complex human society armed with a completely alien world view.  At first he is overwhelmed and very little makes sense to him but as he learns about human society he eventually gets to grips with his own identity and then starts a movement that will have profound effects on humanity. 

I have just re-read it and like many of the things that make a big impression on us in our youth, it seems to have subtly changed when re-read as an adult.  In this case, not all of the changes were subjective.  With the author’s death, his wife, Virginia has authorised the release of the original uncut version.   This has substantially the same plot and it is not immediately obvious that the longer version was significantly better.  However, it still reads very easily and my memory of the shorter version will be fairly hazy after two decades.

It is set in a future that is remarkably like 1960.  The science fiction elements are really there to support the basic premise of a child raised by aliens.  The clash of cultures that this allows is what the book is about.  It allows Heinlein to espouse his opinions and satirise many of the foibles of mid 20th century American culture.  There is much to satirise here but this does tend to date as that society has changed in many ways in the intervening years; much more profoundly in many ways than Heinlein could have imagined. Heinlein produced this book at a time that was ripe for change in American society and the book found itself on the crest of all of the changes that started in the 1960s.

Heinlein had a surrogate in many of his novels; a character who would espouse the author’s opinions; sometimes to great length, and I mostly found this character to be fairly irritating as a youth.  Heinlein was basically a conservative, with intellectual leanings towards libertarianism but was often instinctively reactionary.  In “Stranger in a Strange Land”, Heinlein set out to shock, and some of it still shocks, but often for it’s reactionary content rather than it’s liberalism.  I may have mellowed in my later years, though, as I no longer find his opinions quite so annoying.  I can see that he was a creature of his time and that he was often unable to see beyond his prejudices.

Heinlein was not a great writer or a great story teller; his characters tended to be there for a purpose other than being living characters; and his dialog tended to move between the inane and the pontificating.  Despite all of these failings, “Stranger in a Strange Land” still manages to be a great book and like much of science fiction it is the ideas that are the mainstay.  

My First Harry Potter Experience

I have a sister, Sharon, who stays in Essex.  Despite the obvious Essex girl jokes, and the fact that she has lived there for nearly 15 years now, she is still very Scottish.  For Christmas, she comes home to my parents house.  This Christmas, on the day after Boxing Day, Penny and I went out for lunch with Sharon.  Sharon’s birthday is at the beginning of January, so we planned on buying something for her birthday after lunch and then going to see a film. 

So, we picked her up at my parents and headed into Glasgow.  The nearest car park to where we wanted to go was at the St. Enoch Centre, so we headed for there; along with the rest of the West of Scotland.  When we eventually managed to park, we headed for Princess Square for lunch.  When we got into Princess Square we found ourselves in Crabtree & Evelyn where I spent several years getting hungrier and grumpier.  We did manage to get Sharon’s birthday present, so it was productive at least.

We then had a look around the various eating establishments in Princess Square before settling on Barça.  This is a Tapas Bar and served a wide range of delicious dishes, most of which we had between us, as well as a bottle of Australian Shiraz.  This took up quite a chunk of the afternoon but we eventually dragged ourselves outside to Borders Books.  This took another chunk of time while Penny and Sharon each collected a pile of books.  We then collapsed in the Starbucks to take stock. 

While there, Penny asked what time the car park closed.  The answer of “seven” initiated a whirl of activity; it was already 10 past.  Sharon and I paid for the books while Penny, the only one who hadn’t been partaking of the wine raced back to the car park to get the car.  A sob story about a pregnant sister-in-law enabled her to convince someone to let her in and she collected us outside in plenty of time to head for the cinema.

Now, I had successfully avoided reading any of the Harry Potter books or seeing any of the films and I was quite prepared to keep that up indefinitely.  So, on this day, it was by dint of a bit of an ambush that I ended up watching the latest Potter film, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.

Obviously, there has been a lot of publicity about every new Harry Potter release and I had still managed to avoid them.  My prejudice was that it all sounded a bit like the Enid Blyton boarding school books that I had read during my pre-adolescent read-anything-ever-written period.  They were OK for an eight year old but I had no wish to revisit them.  For many people, the fantasy element would have been an attraction but I am very selective about my fantasy.  The Lord of the Rings is great but I have no time for the many imitators of it.  Harry Potter didn’t sound anything like as interesting as even these; very much a children’s fantasy.

In general, my prejudices seemed to be pretty accurate when I watched the film.  It was well made with lots of fine acting performances, the special effects were very effective and the story hung together well enough.  However, it was clearly a juvenile story, lacking in depth and subtlety.  As such, it was very good but  I won’t be desperate to renew my contact with the series.

Brightness Reef and Infinity’s Shore

I got these two books at Christmas having remembered enjoying the earlier books in the Uplift Series (Sundiver, Startide Rising and The Uplift War).  It turned out I had read them before but simply hadn’t remembered; not a great sign. 

I realised right away when I started reading Brightness Reef that I had read it before.  I jumped past it as it all came back to me and started on Infinity's Shore.  This one, I wasn’t so sure about, initially, but, I had read this as well.  It simply wasn’t as memorable as the other books in the series but I went ahead and read it.  The problem, basically is that the story is getting tired; there are two many characters having disparate adventures for you to get emotionally involved with most of them.  I’ll give the last in the series (Heaven's Reach) a miss.  I still can’t remember whether I have read it.

The Uplift Series is a great series, though, and the first three books were excellent.  The basic premise is that there is a galactic civilisation over a billion years old that is made up of many sapient species.  No species has become sapient without the help of a pre-existing patron race since the legendary Progenitors, until humanity arrives on the scene.  The arrival of this “wolfling race” causes ructions in the galactic civilisation and a human and dolphin crewed explorer ship is caught up in various situations.  There are some great ideas here and the start of the series gets carried along by those.  The characters start to get a bit stale in the second half of the series and it seems a bit like its just been tacked on.  They are OK reads, but not great.

Recent Links #3

ComputerZen.com - Scott Hanselman - Virtual Machines and External Hard Drive throughput
The conclusion is that either USB 2.0 or Firewire are both very reasonable solution for the power user's external HD needs when running Virtual Machines.

City-wide wi-fi rolls out in UK
The Cloud will bring wireless broadband to nine cities including London, Manchester and Birmingham.

Audible.com - audio that speaks to you wherever you are
Buy downloadable books and spoken word.

A Season With Verona

Very few journalists “get” football and in particular the fan’s relationship to and all-consuming identity with their team.  You only have to look at the self serving, hypocritical, sanctimonious pap that is served up by the Scottish press in reporting the game itself or news about the game.  The fans hate the journalists.  They are perceived as lazy, incompetent and ignorant.  They are perceived that way because they are that way.

We go through life not noticing this, or, at least, accepting it.  Then some writing comes along that shows what is possible when writing about football.  Writing that understands the game and what it means to be a fan.  “A Season with Verona” by Tim Parks is just such a piece of writing.  Tim has lived in Italy for 20 years and has grown to love Italy, the Italian game and Hellas Verona. 

For the season 2000-2001, Tim set out to go to every game, home and away and to write a book about the experience.  Setting out to write a book is one thing.  Following the club that you love up and down the country in the company of people whose commitment to the club goes slightly beyond the sane is another.  In A Season with Verona, Tim finds this out and the experience changes him.  At one point he is in a conversation with an older fan that used to go the away games but doesn’t any more:

Pietro shakes his head. ‘If you do the away games, it takes you over. You lose a sense of proportion. It fills your whole life. It’s too strong.’  At once I’m aware that he is describing something I have felt growing in myself, a sense that I am losing control of my thought patterns.  My mind is full of chants.  I’m constantly whistling the triumphal march of Aida or ‘Guantanamera’.  Even at the breakfast table, even in the corridors at the university.  And after every away game the bus rumbles on longer and longer in my head.

The Verona fans are castigated by the press and opposing fans as racist and fascist.  Most of the fans are indifferent or resent this stereotype but the die-hards have a slightly schizophrenic reaction to this reputation: partly denying and partly taking pride in it.  But to some extent, it’s all an act; something they have to do to be a real fan.  Something that is part of their identity; an identity that they feel makes them better than the fans of other teams.  Whether it’s the privileged fans of Milan and Juventus, the despised southerners or the local hatred of Bergamo and Brescia and Vicenza, there is an assumption that the Verona fans are the best.  And the fact that the team are perennial strugglers only ties the bonds tighter.

Reading this book brought many moments of recognition for how the fans actually feel.  It’s not a simple thing; there is a huge emotional bond but not all of the emotions are positive.  Tim Parks captures this remarkably well.  This is a book about identity, about hope, about despair, about euphoria, about hate, about love, about Italy, about buses and all in the name of the beautiful game.