Tag Archives: Philosophy

Philosophy

Mind over Matter

When I want to write something (this blog post, for instance), I pick up my pen and start making these squiggly symbols on my notebook, which I type into the blog later on. Simple, everyday thing, right? But how do I do it? I mean, how do I make a change in the physical, material world of matter by the mere will or intentionality of my non-material mind?

This sounds like a really silly question, I know. When you want to write a blessed post, you just pick up a blessed pen and write the blessed thing (using “bless” the same way Whoopi Goldberg used it in one of her movies). What is so strange or philosophical about it? This is exactly what I would have said a week ago before reading up some stuff on the philosophy of mind.

How exactly do I write? The pen is made up of matter. It doesn’t move on its own volition and make words. We know it from physics. We need a cause. Of course, it is my hand that is moving it, controlled by a set of precise electro-chemical reactions. And what is causing the reactions? The neurons fining in my brain — again, interactions in the material world. And what causes the particular precise patterns of neuronal firing? It is, of course, my mind. My neurons fire in response to the ideas and words in my mind.

Hold on, not so fast there, Skippy! My mind is not a physical entity. The most physical or material statement we can make about the mind or consciousness is that it is a state of the brain — or a pattern of neuronal firings. My intention to write a few words is again a spatial and temporal arrangement of some neurons firing — nothing more. How do such patterns result in changes in the physical, material world?

We don’t find this issue so puzzling because we have been doing forever. So we don’t let ourselves be amazed by it — unless we are a bit crazy. But this problem is very real. Note that if my intention of writing resulted only in my imagination that I am writing, we don’t have a problem. Both the cause (the intention) and the effect (the imagination) are non-material. And this line of thinking does provide a solution to the original problem — just assume that everything is in one’s mind. Nothing is real. Everything is Maya, and only one’s mind exists. This is the abyss of solipsism. As a philosophical stance, this idea is consistent and even practical. I wrote a book loosely based on the notion that nothing is real — and aptly called it The Unreal Universe.

Unfortunately, solipsism is quite wrong. When I say, “Everything is in my mind, nothing else is real,” all you have to say is, “I agree, I hear you!” And boom, I am wrong! For if you agree, there is at least one more mind other than mine.

So solipsism as a solution to the puzzle that the non-material intention in a mind can make physical changes in the world is less than satisfactory. Then the other solution, of course, is to say that intentionality is illusory. Free will doesn’t exist; it is only a figment of our imagination. In other words, I didn’t really intend to write this post, it was all preordained. It is just that after-the-fact, I kind of attribute free will to it and pretend that I meant to do it.

Strange as it may seem, there are some strong indications that this statement may be true. I will write another post (with or without free will) to list them.

The current view in thinking about mind and brain is in an analogy with a digital computer. Mind is a program (software), and brain is the a computer (hardware) on which it runs. It sounds right, and seems to explain quite a bit. After all, a computer can control complex precision-equipment based on programs running on it. But there is a deep philosophical reason why this analogy is totally wrong, but that will be another post.

Philosophy, Quotes

Love of Wisdom

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Philosophy means love wisdom. But it enjoys none of the glamor that its definition would imply. For instance, in one of the board games that I played with the kids recently, the chance card that would make you bankrupt actually read, “Turn into a philosopher and lose all your money!” This card was particularly troubling for me because I do plan to take up philosophy seriously, hopefully soon.

The lack of correlation between wisdom and worldly rewards is unsettling, especially to those who are foolish enough to consider themselves wise. Why is it that the love of wisdom wouldn’t translate to glory, riches and creature comforts? The reason, as far as I can tell, is a deep disconnect between philosophy and life — as a wise (but distinctly unphilosophical) friend of mine put it in one of those hazy late-night stupors of the graduate years, “Philosophy to real life is what masturbation is to sex.” Yes, the masses see the love of wisdom as pointless intellectual masturbation. This view is perhaps echoed in what Russell said once:

Philosophy busies itself with things that seem obvious, to come up with something grandiose. This apparent obsession with trivialities is a false impression. Dispelling this impression is the purpose of this post. Let me start by pointing out one fact. Philosophy is at the root of everything that you do. You live a good, moral life? Or even a lousy, greedy one? Your behavior, choices and reasons are studied in Ethics. You are a quant, or do stuff technical or mathematical? Logic. Into physics and worship Einstein? You cannot then ignore the metaphysical aspects of space and time. Lawyer? Yeah, Rhetorics. Knowledge worker? Epistemology defines what knowledge is. Artist? Fashion designer? Work in the movie industry? We got you covered in Aesthetics. You see, every avenue of human endeavor has a philosophic underpinning to it.

Pointing out this underpinning is, in reality, not as big a deal as I make it out to be. It is merely a matter of definition. I define philosophy to be whatever it is that “underpins” all aspects of life, and then point out this underpinning as evidence of its importance. The real value of philosophy is in structuring our thoughts and guiding them, for instance, in perceiving the speciousness and subtle circularity of my underpinning-therefore-important argument. Philosophy teaches us that nothing stands own its own, and that there are structures and schools of thought that illuminate questions that befuddle us. There are scaffolds to support us, and giants on whose shoulders we can stand to see far and clear. To be sure, some of these giants may be facing the wrong way, but it is again the boldness and independence that come with philosophy that will help us see the errors in their ways. Without it, learning becomes indoctrination, and in our quest to assimilate information into wisdom, we get stuck somewhere in between — perhaps at the level of knowledge.

All this discussion still doesn’t give us a clue as to the disquieting connection between philosophy and bankruptcy. For when a great man voices his existential anguish as, “I think, therefore I am,” we can always say (as we often do), “Good for you mate, whatever works for you!” and go about our life.

Love of wisdom perhaps facilitates its acquisition, and the purpose of wisdom is only wisdom. It is very much like life, the purpose of which is merely to live a little longer. But without philosophy, how do we see the meaning of life? Or lack thereof?

Corporate Life, Life and Death, Philosophy

Midlife Crisis

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In one of my recent posts, an astute friend of mine detected a tinge of midlife crisis. He was right, of course. At some point, typically around midlife, a lot of us find it boring. The whole thing. How could it not be boring? We repeat the same mundane things over and over at all levels. True, at times we manage to convince ourselves that the mundane things are not mundane, but important, and overlay a higher purpose over our existence. Faith helps. So do human bondages. But, no matter how we look at it, we are all pushing our own personal rocks to a mountaintop, only to to see it roll down at the end of the day — knowing that it invariably will. Our own individual Sisyphuses, cursed with the ultimate futility and absurdity of it all. And, as if to top it off, our knowledge of it!

Why did Camus say we went through the Sisyphus life? Ah, yes, because we got into the habit of living before acquiring the faculty of thinking. By midlife, perhaps, our thinking catches up with our innate existential urges, and manifests itself as a crisis. Most of us survive it, and as Camus himself pointed out, Sisyphus was probably a happy man, despite having to eternally push the rock up the slope. So let’s exercise our thinking faculty assuming it is not too dangerous.

Most of us have a daily life that is some variation of the terse French description — metro, boulot, dodo. We commute to work, make some money for ourselves (and more for somebody else), eat the same lunch, sit through the same meetings, rush back home, watch TV and hit the sack. Throw in a gym session and an overseas trip once in a while, and that’s about it. This is the boring not merely because it really is, but also because this is what everybody does!

Imagine that — countless millions of us, born somewhere at some point in time, working hard to acquire some money, or knowledge, or fame, or glory, or love — any one of the thousands of variations of Sisyphus’s rock — only to see it all tumble down to nothingness an another point in time. If this isn’t absurd, what is?

If I were to leave this post at this point, I can see my readers looking for the “Unsubscribe” button en masse. To do anything useful with this depressing idea of futile rock-pushing rat-race, we need to see beyond it. Or have faith, if we can — that there is a purpose, and a justification for everything, and that we are not meant to know this elusive purpose.

Since you are reading this blog, you probably don’t subscribe to the faith school. Let’s then look for the answer elsewhere. With your permission I will start with something Japanese. Admittedly, my exposure to the Japanese culture comes from Samurai movies and a couple of short trips to Japan, but lack of expertise has never stopped me from expressing my views on a subject. Why do you think the Japanese take such elaborate care and pride in something as silly as pouring tea?

Well, I think they are saying something much deeper. It is not that pouring tea is important. The point is nothing is important. Everything is just another manifestation of the Sisyphus rock. When nothing is important, nothing is unimportant either. Now, that is something profound. Pouring tea is no less (or more) important than writing books on quantitative finance, or listening to that old man attempting the Susannah song on his mouth-organ on Market Street. When you know that all rocks will come tumbling down just as soon as you reach the pinnacle of your existence, it doesn’t matter what rock you carry with you to the top. As long as you carry it well. And happily.

So I try to write this blog post as well as I possibly can.

Philosophy, Physics

Ghost of Gravity

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It has been a while since my last post. I was reading Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance again just now, and came to the part where Pirsig compares scientific beliefs and superstitions. I thought I would paraphrase it and share it with my readers. But it is perhaps best to borrow his own words: “The laws of physics and of logic — the number system — the principle of algebraic substitution. These are ghosts. We just believe in them so thoroughly they seem real. For example, it seems completely natural to presume that gravitation and the law of gravitation existed before Isaac Newton. It would sound nutty to think that until the seventeenth century there was no gravity. So when did this law start? Has it always existed? What I’m driving at is the notion that before the beginning of the earth, before the sun and the stars were formed, before the primal generation of anything, the law of gravity existed. Sitting there, having no mass of its own, no energy of its own, not in anyone’s mind because there wasn’t anyone, not in space because there was no space either, not anywhere…this law of gravity still existed? If that law of gravity existed, I honestly don’t know what a thing has to do to be nonexistent. It seems to me that law of gravity has passed every test of nonexistence there is. You cannot think of a single attribute of nonexistence that that law of gravity didn’t have. Or a single scientific attribute of existence it did have. And yet it is still ‘common sense’ to believe that it existed.

“Well, I predict that if you think about it long enough you will find yourself going round and round and round and round until you finally reach only one possible, rational, intelligent conclusion. The law of gravity and gravity itself did not exist before Isaac Newton. No other conclusion makes sense. And what that means is that that law of gravity exists nowhere except in people’s heads! It’s a ghost! We are all of us very arrogant and conceited about running down other people’s ghosts but just as ignorant and barbaric and superstitious about our own.”

[This quote is from an online version of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.]

Philosophy, Physics, Science

Only a Matter of Time

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Although we speak of space and time in the same breath, they are quite different in many ways. Space is something we perceive all around us. We see it (rather, objects in it), we can move our hand through it, and we know that if our knee tries to occupy the same space as, say, the coffee table, it is going to hurt. In other words, we have sensory correlates to our notion of space, starting from our most precious sense of sight.

Time, on the other hand, has no direct sensory backing. And for this reason, it becomes quite difficult to get a grip over it. What is time? We sense it indirectly through change and motion. But it would be silly to define time using the concepts of change and motion, because they already include the notion of time. The definition would be cyclic.

Assuming, for now, that no definition is necessary, let’s try another perhaps more tractable issue. Where does this strong sense of time come from? I once postulated that it comes from our knowledge of our demise — that questionable gift that we all possess. All the time durations that we are aware of are measured against the yardstick of our lifespan, perhaps not always consciously. I now wonder if this postulate is firm enough, and further ruminations on this issue have convinced me that I am quite ignorant of these things and need more knowledge. Ah.. only if I had more time. đŸ™‚

In any case, even this more restricted question of the origin of time doesn’t seem to be that tractable, after all. Physics has another deep problem with time. It has to do with the directionality. It cannot easily explain why time has a direction — an arrow, as it were. This arrow does not present itself in the fundamental laws governing physical interactions. All the laws in physics are time reversible. The laws of gravity, electromagnetism or quantum mechanics are all invariant with respect to a time reversal. That is to say, they look the same with time going forward or backward. So they give no clue as to why we experience the arrow of time.

Yet, we know that time, as we experience it, is directional. We can remember the past, but not the future. What we do now can affect the future, but not the past. If we play a video tape backwards, the sequence of events (like broken pieces of glass coming together to for a vase) will look funny to us. However, if we taped the motion of the planets in a solar system, or the electron cloud in an atom, and played it backward to a physicist, he would not find anything funny in the sequences because the physical laws are reversible.

Physics considers the arrow of time an emergent property of statistical collections. To illustrate this thermodynamic explanation of time, let’s consider an empty container where we place some dry ice. After some time, we expect to see a uniform distribution of carbon dioxide gas in the container. Once spread out, we do not expect the gas in the container to coagulate into solid dry ice, no matter how long we wait. The video of CO2 spreading uniformly in the container is a natural one. Played backward, the sequence of the CO2 gas in the container congealing to solid dry ice in a corner would not look natural to us because it violates our sense of the arrow of time.

The apparent uniformity of CO2 in the container is due to the statistically significant quantity of dry ice we placed there. If we manage to put a small quantity, say five molecules of CO2, we can fully expect to see the congregation of the molecules in one location once in a while. Thus, the arrow of time manifests itself as a statistical or thermodynamic property. Although the directionality of time seems to emerge from reversible physical laws, its absence in the fundamental laws does look less than satisfactory philosophically.

Philosophy, Physics, Science

Half a Bucket of Water

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We all see and feel space, but what is it really? Space is one of those fundamental things that a philosopher may consider an “intuition.” When philosophers look at anything, they get a bit technical. Is space relational, as in, defined in terms of relations between objects? A relational entity is like your family — you have your parents, siblings, spouse, kids etc. forming what you consider your family. But your family itself is not a physical entity, but only a collection of relationships. Is space also something like that? Or is it more like a physical container where objects reside and do their thing?

You may consider the distinction between the two just another one of those philosophical hairsplittings, but it really is not. What space is, and even what kind of entity space is, has enormous implications in physics. For instance, if it is relational in nature, then in the absence of matter, there is no space. Much like in the absence of any family members, you have no family. On the other hand, if it is a container-like entity, the space exists even if you take away all matter, waiting for some matter to appear.

So what, you ask? Well, let’s take half a bucket of water and spin it around. Once the water within catches on, its surface will form a parabolic shape — you know, centrifugal force, gravity, surface tension and all that. Now, stop the bucket, and spin the whole universe around it instead. I know, it is more difficult. But imagine you are doing it. Will the water surface be parabolic? I think it will be, because there is not much difference between the bucket turning or the whole universe spinning around it.

Now, let’s imagine that we empty the universe. There is nothing but this half-full bucket. Now it spins around. What happens to the water surface? If space is relational, in the absence of the universe, there is no space outside the bucket and there is no way to know that it is spinning. Water surface should be flat. (In fact, it should be spherical, but ignore that for a second.) And if space is container-like, the spinning bucket should result in a parabolic surface.

Of course, we have no way of knowing which way it is going to be because we have no way of emptying the universe and spinning a bucket. But that doesn’t prevent us from guessing the nature of space and building theories based on it. Newton’s space is container-like, while at their heart, Einstein’s theories have a relational notion of space.

So, you see, philosophy does matter.

Humor, Philosophy

If Time Died Now, I Would Be Happy

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I dream strange dreams. Thankfully, I don’t usually remember them. But at times, I do remember some, and they provide a lot of entertainment. One recent dream was of a TV interview, going on in a mall. The person being interviewed was a stranger, as the protagonists of my dreams tend to be. This guy was middle-eastern, either Iraqi or Iranian, and was talking about a kid who he was about to adopt. The kid turned out to be a child prodigy, and was flying away somewhere for specialized training. The interviewee, though a bit sad, was philosophical about it. At that moment, there was a background song in the mall that went like, “If time died now, I would be happy.” And the man says, “Yes, that is the way I feel!”

I remember feeling, in my dream, “Yeah, right! The right song just happened to be playing!” Way too skeptical even in my dreams. Not to mention that there is not such song (as far as I know). If you think this dream is weird, I once dreamed up an unknown (and non-existent) word while reading a book. I even tried looking up the word when I woke up, but in vain, of course.

One of my top dreams was when I was invited to the White House by President Bush (junior) right after his inauguration. As I stepped into what appeared to be a decent sized living room, the President was walking down a flight of stairs. And he asked me, “So. Do you still think I’m dumb?” Now, how did he know how I felt?

Coming back to my time-dying dream, there is something else that is a bit weird. I mean, one would normally say, “If I died now, I would die a happy man” or something to that effect. Why would “time” die? Is it my secret conviction that when one dies, one’s “time” also dies? That there is no common, universal time, but only our own, individual, personal times? Perhaps. I’m not talking about Newton’s universal times vs. Einstein’s relative time. There is something philosophical here that is just beyond my grasp. Like a name at the tip of your tongue. These are deep waters, and I really need to learn more. Back to school, some day…

The fanciest of my dreams? I was James Bond once. Complete with a bicycle that turned into a wooden canoe when I hit the local beach.

Books, Philosophy, Physics, Science

On Rationality and Delusions

This post started as a reply to M Cuffe’s comment on my post on The God Delusion. M Cuffe suggested that I’m merely asserting an individual’s right to be irrational, or ignorant. Yes, I am indeed saying that one has the right to be irrational. But that statement stems from something that I believe is deeper. It stems from what we mean by rationality, and why we think it is a good thing to be rational. I know it sounds “irrational,” but I’m talking about rationality as Persig talked about it in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.

Stepping back a bit, rationality is quintessentially a worldview. By rational, we mean things that seem normal to our commonsense. So the notion of a nuclear bomb moving or obliterating a mountain is rational, although we have never seen it. You believe it because it is consistent with your worldview. I believe it too, trust me. I was a nuclear physicist not too long ago. đŸ™‚

And a god (or faith) moving mountains is clearly ludicrous to our rationality. I’m not asking people to give equal rational weight to faith and bomb moving mountains. I’m merely encouraging them to examine why they believe in one and not the other. Calling one more rational is just another way of saying that you choose to believe one more than the other. Why?

Thinking along those lines, I come to the conclusion that it is only a question of worldviews or belief systems. I personally subscribe to your worldview based on rationality as well, which is why I consider myself also an atheist (although one of my readers thought I was merely confused :-))

A god as an old man hiding behind the clouds is not consistent with our worldview. But it may have been a metaphor for something else. Let me explain. We have these abstract concepts of happiness, perfection, grief etc. Are these things real? Should we believe they exist? Such questions don’t make too much sense because these concepts are all in our minds. But then, what isn’t?

Let’s take perfection, for instance. Let’s say we assign some human form to it, so that we could explain it to a child or something. We then call it, say, the goddess of perfection or whatever. Over generations, for whatever reason, the notion of perfection disappears from our awareness, but the metaphor of the goddess remains. Now, to somebody who believes in the reality perfection, and therefore the existence of the goddess, it is not a delusion. In that belief system, in that context and worldview, it makes perfect sense. But in the absence of the abstract concept of perfection, the goddess becomes a delusion.

I believe that a large part of our collective wisdom is handed down in the form of such metaphors. Instead of dismissing them as delusions because their context is gone, we should perhaps try harder to rediscover the lost concepts. I also believe such metaphors exist in other fields that seem to work well. Take, for instance, the Qi concept in traditional Chinese medicine, the five elements (or three body types) in Ayurveda and so on. To the extent that traditional Chinese medicine and Ayurveda work, there has to be some knowledge buried in those practices. If we write off their basis merely because their metaphors are not consistent with our rationality, we may be writing off some potential sources of new or forgotten knowledge.

In addition, I believe that some of our smarter geniuses indeed see delusional metaphors in what we take to be supremely real.

Books, Philosophy, Physics, Science

Blind-Sight

In my post on A Plausible God, I cited blind-sight as an example of sensing that does not lead to conscious perception. This remarkable neurological syndrome illustrates the tight interconnection between our sense of reality and consciousness. Larry Weiscrantz and Alan Cowey discovered blind-sight at Oxford about 25 years ago.

Blindness can be physiological, when the physical eye is not functioning properly. Or it can be neurological, when the eye is fne but the visual signal processing is impaired. For example, if our right visual cortex is damaged, we are blind on the left side. When examining a patient with such a neurological blindness on one side, Weiscrantz shined a little spot of light on the patient’s blind side. Weiscrantz then asked the patient to point to it. The patient protested that he could not see it and could not possibly point to it. Weiscrantz asked him to try anyway. The patient then proceeded to point accurately to the spot of light that he could not consciously perceive.

After hundreds of trials, it became obvious that the patient could point correctly in ninety-nine percent of trials, even though he claimed on each trial that he was only guessing. How did the patient determine the location of an invisible object and point to it accurately? The neurological reason is that we all have two visual pathways. The new visual pathway goes through the visual cortex. The old, backup pathway runs through our brain stem to the superior colliculus.

The cause of our patient’s blindness was that his visual cortex was damaged, and it did not get the signals from one eye and its optic nerves. But the signals took the parallel route to the superior colliculus, using the old pathway. This rerouting allowed him to locate the object in space and guide his hand accurately to point to the invisible object. What this syndrome of blind-sight shows us is that only the new visual pathway leads to a conscious experience. While the old pathway is perfectly usable (for survival, for instance), it does not lead to a conscious experience of vision.

An interesting neurological condition, no doubt. But blind-sight is more than that. It is a rather confounding philosophical conundrum. The spot of light that the patient could see — was it real? Sure, we know it was real. But what if all of us were blind-sighted? If some of us started developing a semblance of awareness as a result of our blind-sight, would we believe them, or call them delusional? If there are senses that we can be unaware of, how sure can we be of the “sensed”? Or of our “delusions”?

This post is an edited version of section in The Unreal Universe. The information comes from The Emerging Mind: Reith Lectures on Neuroscience (BBC Radio, 2003) given by V. S. Ramachandran, the director of the Center for Brain and Cognition, San Diego, CA, USA. My book refers to several examples of physiological brain anomalies and their perceptual manifestation from this lecture series.

Books, Philosophy, Physics, Science

A Plausible God

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In my review of The God Delusion, I promised to post a plausible concept of God. By “a plausible concept,” I mean a concept that doesn’t violate the known principles of science, and should therefore be consistent with the so-called scientific worldview. Mind you, the plausibility of the concept says nothing about its veracity; but it may say something about it being a delusion.

Of all the sciences, physics seems to be the one most at odds with the God concept. Clearly, evolutionary biology is none too happy with it either, if Dawkins is anything to go by. But that analysis is for another post.

Let’s start by analyzing a physicist’s way of “proving” that there is no God. The argument usually goes something like this:

If there is a God who is capable of affecting me in any way, then there should be some force exerted by that God on me. There should be some interaction. Since the interaction is big enough to affect me, I should be able to use this particular interaction to “measure” the God-intensity. So far, I haven’t been able to measure any such God-related force. So either there is no God that affects me in any way, or there is a God that affects me through deviously disguised interactions so that whenever I try to measure the interaction, I’m always fooled. Now, you tell me what is more likely. By Occam’s Razor, the simplest explanation (that there is no God that can affect me) has the highest chance of being right.

While this is a good argument (and one I used to make), it is built on a couple of implicit assumptions that are rather tricky to spot. The first assumption is that we cannot be affected by an interaction that we cannot sense. This assumption is not necessarily true.

Modern cosmology needs at least one other kind of interaction to account for dark matter and dark energy. Let’s call this unknown interaction the dark interaction. Even though we cannot sense the dark interaction, we are subject to it exactly as all other (known) matter is. The existence of this interaction beyond our senses is sufficient to break the physicist’s proof. A plausible God can affect us, without our being able to sense it, through dark interactions.

But that is not the end of the story. The physicist can still argue, “Fine, if we cannot sense this God, how would we know he exists? And why do so many people claim they can feel him?” This argument is based on the assumptions on conscious experience and sensing. The hidden assumptions in the physicist’s questions (again, not necessarily true) are:

  1. Sensing should lead to a conscious perception.
  2. All humans should have the same sense modality.

An example of sensing that does not lead to conscious perception is the syndrome of blind sight. (I will post more on it later). A patient suffering from blind sight can point to the light spot he cannot consciously see. Thus, sensing without conscious perception is possible. The second assumption that all men are created equal (in terms of sensory modality) does not have any a priori reason to be true. It is possible that some people may be able to sense the dark interaction (or some other kind of interaction that God chooses) without being conscious of it.

So it is possible to argue that there is a God that affects us through a hitherto unknown interaction. And that some 95% of us can sense this interaction, and the others are atheists. What this argument illustrates is the plausibility of God. More precisely, it demonstrates the consistency of a concept of God with physics. It is not meant to be a proof of the existence of God. And that is why, despite the plausibility of God, I am still an atheist.

In retrospect, this argument did not have to be so complicated. It boils down to saying that there are limits on our knowledge, and to what is knowable. There is plenty of room for God outside these limits. It is also a classic argument by those who believe in God — you don’t know everything, so how do you know there isn’t a God?