Existential wimp

Yesterday in a coffee shop in Inverurie attention returned to the deep question captured in the lyrics (by Hal David) of a soundtrack to the 1966 movie “Alfie.” “What’s it all about Alfie, is it just for the moment that we live?” The traditional, academic approach to finding, or not finding, an answer lies in philosophy and religion.

Some key western philosophers who tackled the topic include Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, and Jean Paul Sartre. The essence of the idea is captured in this quote from Wikipedia:

“While the predominant value of existentialist thought is commonly acknowledged to be freedom, its primary virtue is authenticity. In the view of the existentialist, the individual's starting point is characterized by what has been called "the existential attitude", or a sense of disorientation and confusion in the face of an apparently meaningless or absurd world.”

I first locked horns with the problem in the late 60s and this prompted my credos:

• ·         The only certainty is doubt.
• ·         The only constant thing is change.

·          

These made me aware of the huge numbers of “neurotic nihilists living in existential vacuums”. Monty Python captured the essence of the ego problem in the “Life of Brian” where a multitude was chanting, “we are all different”, and a little man noted that he wasn’t. The Western cult of the individual. Fanatical followers of frivolous fads and fashions.

So I spent a few decades with the Eastern way of thinking, doing and being. Lao Tzu captured the essence with the notion that “the reality that can be described is not the real reality.” Language is recently evolved and it is limited about what can be spoken. “He who knows does not speak and he who speaks does not know.” (Lao Tzu again.)

Then along came meditation. Being still. Just sit and “drop off body and mind”. (Dogen Zenji). And thus know that the mind has a mind of its own – in fact it has several ‘minds’ that have been shaped by nature, nurture and serendipity as you make the journey from womb to tomb. What is the structure, function and location of “me”?

One of my early moves away from 20^th century Scottish Presbyterian was towards eastern patterns of thinking - mainly Taoism, Hinduism, Buddhism and Zen. I read many of the classic texts, and many comments on them from both eastern and western gurus. I also made time to sit by myself, and with a Thich Nhat Hahn sangha in Findhorn once a week for almost 10 years.

Then along came Jon Kabat-Zinn and mindfulness based stress reduction (MBSR). This is Buddhism without the toot and it is now racing around the western world. It is not thought of as a religion but rather as a branch of positive psychology. The idea is to set aside quiet time and to witness what goes on in your mind.

Then along came the evolutionary psychology crew and the realisation that your various minds have evolved and are there for a purpose – even the negative ones.

Then along came the scanners of the neuro-science brigade and the discovery that the mind can change the brain and vice versa. There is neuro plasticity. David Eagleman tells the tale with effortless erudition and humour.

SO?  All our thoughts, feelings and moods are mind-made. And their origins are in our nature, nurture and serendipity. As evolved entities we are located in cosmic time and space. We are part of an ongoing serendipitous process that is not planned in advance. In retrospect we can see what looks like ‘progress’. But who is the ‘I’ that ‘sees’?

Six tables in the Inverurie coffee shop were occupied - mainly by chattering couples. Several were Teresa May look alikes – unreformed Tories – Nasty?

I do not know what they were chatting about. I was inclined to feel that they were unreformed existential wimps - parochial and xenophobic - and immune to the meaningless absurdity of it all.

But a more positive and wholesome “existential attitude” has evolved in recent times. There is no forward planner or plan but some awesome stuff is happening at all levels of cosmic space and time – and this includes what happens inside your brain. It seems reasonable to be amazed and grateful and thus to have ‘peace of mind’ more often than not.

“Sitting quietly doing nothing
Spring comes and the grass grow by itself”

Be still and know.

It’s never too late to change your mind.

The wimp MP

There are several Wimps in my cerebral parliament. What functions do they serve?

The dictionary suggests that a wimp is a weak and unadventurous person who fails to begin or complete tasks because of fear or lack of confidence.

Wimps reckon that unconditional respect is due to the good and great of society – to the elders and betters. The worthies have their imperfections but they are the glue that holds cultures together. Think of shepherd and sheep, parent and child, teacher and student, employer and employee, entrepreneur and wage slave, leader and the led. Wimps don’t want to rock the boat.

The source of wimpishness lies in nature, nurture and serendipity. It is managed through three modes of education – informal (life), nonformal (apprenticeships), and formal (schooling). Those suggest a 3x3 grid and nine possible points of view.

The informal and formal modes have been around since human beings began. Formal education for well connected males has been around for about 3,500 years and ‘education for all’ became a UNESCO  policy objective in the year 2000.

Parents play a dual role. They are the elders and betters as far as their young children are concerned and they also mirror the standard patterns of deference in the wider society.

Wimps tend towards feelings of low self esteem and hopelessness, and towards submissiveness and shyness. This leads to stress, anxiety, and panic and to rumination and depression. Wimps are concerned to maintain standards and to avoid causing people to think badly of them. (See lyrics to “Why can’t I be?”)

Successful human groups have rules and regulations which guide the behaviour of both the leaders and the led. But the only constant thing is change. In most human groups there are outliers who question the worthiness of the existing patterns of behaviour and belief. They are the ‘creatives’ who go against the grain. They are the source of the variations upon which selection works.  In stable times they are locked away in madhouses. In rapidly changing times they are let loose to act as freelance filosophers. In mildly uncertain times there will be norm cracking and in tougher times There will be paradigm shifting.

My cerebral parliament has several examples of wimps but most of them are ambiguous. I have lived and worked in six countries and this has involved dropping one set of cultural norms and picking up different ones. This is wimpish. If I was a real man I would stay in one culture and figure how to operate in it. It is wimpish to do a runner every few years.

At the end of my Zoology studies I committed to zero population growth. This meant that I did not make babies although I had several girlfriends along the way. And to keep the house tidy I employed a home help rather than marrying one. This is wimpish. If I was a real man …

Between contracts I came back to Portsoy to examine my life until then. This involved several years of renunciation, retreat, study and meditation . This is wimpish. If I was a real man …

I am a creative type to some extent – photos, doodles, tunes, songs, stories on a blog. These come from the unconscious. If I hang around something will turn up. This is wimpish. If I was a real man …

I find it increasingly hard to keep up with technology (esp digital music) and with the cutting edge of topical academic studies (esp evolutionary psychology, and neurology). But this may be due to old age.)

Real men buy into the cultural rules and regs. Wimps, despite themselves, ask awkward questions. OR … maybe I am misconstruing my parliamentarians.

The image of the mind as a parliament comes from David Eagleman “It's a mistake to think of ourselves as individuals Our brains are like a neural parliament: we've got all these competing political parties fighting for control”

My thoughts about wimps is loosely based on the ideas of Susan Cain (2012) Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking. There are at least two types of wimp:

• The Weakling Wimp is woeful and worried.
• The Warrior Wimp is wary and wise.

The weakling wimp is the standard one. The notion of the warrior wimp emerged in the process of writing this story. My idea is that some individuals are too selfish and lazy to tie themselves tightly to a particular cultural form. They are not content to be a robot on autopilot. They dare to be different. They delight to be different although they might not let that show.

If I was a real man (robotic, enslaved and lacklustre) I would conform to one of my cultural types. I would be married and live in a little box with a mortgage and 2.5 kids whom I would guide into being robots on autopilot in their turn – faithfully following frivolous fads and fashions.

SO – In my cerebral parliament there is a creative outlier version of a warrior wimp. And I note that there is a lot of stuff left over from childhood that forms mediocre modules of the weakling wimp.

The parliamentary unconscious

There is an intention to stay away from ICT and music for at least part of today. There is also an urge to footer with it. Two members of parliament in my unconscious.

Neither the real nor the metaphorical parliaments lend themselves to easy definition. But the essence is debate related to topical topics.  Representatives of different points of view interact as part of a deliberative assembly. 

In many situations there are not enough fastidious facts upon which to base a definitive decision and blustering bullshit results. And in such environments politicians prioritize policy.

Teresa May and Jeremy Corbyn share our hominid inheritance and have a common set of hard wired instincts. But they will have been encultured differently and will therefore have different sets of intuitions and biases. 

Four hours and four paragraphs. There has been footering.  The mind has been wandering. There has been a continuous buzz of chat from the cerebral lobby but very little of it has been about ICT and music. Yoh!

Note – thanks to David Eagleman for the idea of the mind being like a parliament.

from the unconscious 2

memory workaround

I have very specific memory problems. The Doctor ran me through a set of tests and I did well in all but one which was a complete failure. It involved repeating a list of five random words.

Thoughts, feelings and moods (TFM) are linked in the brain. They have been a long time in evolving. They were not planned in advance by a purposive committee. There will be evolved pathways and hubs - some hard wired and some rooted in experience

We survive in the present and make plans for the future based on experiences in the past. So a good memory is useful for understanding ‘reality’ which may have been positive, negative or neutral. As humans it is useful to have a negativity bias but not too much. But there is the option by taking thought to accentuate the positive by savouring it more often and for longer.

But I presently have to deal with poor memory while working through the user’s manuals for several bits of technology. I read the instructions on screen but then come out of the manual to take action and cannot remember what to do. There is the possibility of printing the manual but that is wasteful. I could make written notes but my handwriting is illegible. It is not always possible to cut and paste but the snipping tool can overcome that. And that is my workaround at the moment.

Life’s continuum

Yesterday I was window shopping and people watching in Inverurie. My stone age mind modules were engaged. I knew that I was foraging and that there was hunting and gathering in its computer age costume.

School age people in uniforms were regimented in classrooms by the 40 minute bell. Shop and factory workers were doing their repetitive 9 to 5 shifts. So the streets, shops and cafes were occupied by old age pensioners enjoying their retirement, and by well-dressed young mothers with babies in prams, dogs on leads and long hair streaming down their backs.

This morning I finished reading Dylan Evans and Oscar Zarate (2015) Introducing Evolutionary Psychology: a graphic guide. I give it 10 out of 10. It was part responsible for the bunch of concepts that turned up from the unconscious:

• ·         From cradle to grave.
• ·         From womb to tomb.
• ·         Enculturation by nature, nurture and serendipity.
• ·         Putting the universe back into university education.
• ·        Better ways to be human.
• ·         Mindfulness.
• ·         The paradigm shift in brain science.
•           A sheep is nature’s way of converting grass into wool.
• ·         A human being is nature’s way of …?

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Today’s version of life’s continuum - 

[Infancy, Pre-school, School, work and play, parenting, pet keeping, retirement, funeral]

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• ·         A human being is nature’s way of letting the universe be conscious of itself.
• ·         The purpose of a self-conscious universe would be …?
• ·         The purpose of an unconscious universe is …?
• ·         Argue for and against life elsewhere in the cosmos.
• ·         The purpose of life elsewhere in the cosmos might be …?
• ·         Where is purpose located?