T E N C Y N I C A L E S S A Y S
(POPULAR WORLDVIEW)
— — — — —
This being a whole book I will give an idea about its
cover
.
On the
front cover
: picture on which is shown the barrel of Diogenes (though it looks rather like very big jar with a cover), tilted a bit forward in a small pit in the sandy soil, in the front with shifted aside cover, where out of its opening is protruded one bearded head and a hand, from aside rises (part of) big olive tree and on the sandy ground around are seen fallen olives, the outstretched hand holds one olive, in the upper right corner is seen bright sun, and in the distance is shining the sea. All this is surrounded above and below by stylized Greek ornaments and this picture is placed in the bottom part of the front cover. Above it is written the title and the author on violet-red (or orange) background.
On the
back cover
: nothing except the bright background of the front part (but, if this is so necessary, then may be put an advertisement of Coca-Cola, or the cigarettes Camel, or the American banner — according to who pays more).
— — — — —
CONTENTS
Foreword
About the Creation and the created
About the woman and the man
About the mankind
About the intellect
About the religion
About the democracy
About the violence
About the justice
About the population
About the future
Addendum: Constitution of Cynicland
— — — — —
PART ONE
FOREWORD
This is philosophical book, what means that it is serious reading, not for to fall asleep, though, surely, some of you may use it also for that purpose, because to many readers it may really have somnolent effect. But here you will find no citations and critiques of existing philosophical trends, no unknown to the general public terminology, what means that it is also popular book. It is maximally unprejudiced, in contrast to many philosophical books, which, in spite of their pretensions to be universal and all-embracing are at least tendentious, because their authors feel obliged to defend someone′s interests. In addition to this, in their desire to be exact and non contradictory, they are forced, either to exclude the contradictions from the books starting with some basic assumptions, but in this way they unavoidably delimit the subject of investigation and show the things unilaterally, or else risk to be exposed to attacks for inexactness and metaphysics. In other words, the philosophy, more than the other sciences, suffers from the problem of decomposition of the infinitely complex and interrelated real world (and here the word "infinitely" can′t be substituted with "very", because it is something more than "the most"), but if one natural process is not decomposed it can′t be observed precisely enough, so that this is one unavoidable suffering (something like the birth pangs, without which, at least till the moment, the continuation of life is impossible).
Because of the partiality of philosophical currents it happens that they are very many and exclude one another, similarly to the religions, something that is not characteristic for the private sciences, because there are not many mathematics, or physics, or medicines, and so on. Though there are various subdivisions or branches of these sciences they, as a rule, don′t dispute one with the other, for they have different spheres of activity or object areas, and even when their areas overlap, how is with the classical, eastern, and folk medicines, then neither of them questions basic principles, like this that the heart of the humans is in the left part of the chest, that he has two hands with five fingers, etc., but just give alternative approaches. In the same time in the philosophy they argue for centuries whether the matter comes before the idea about it, what for one cyclical process is meaningless, and is paraphrasing of the question about the egg and the hen, about which I doubt that even a child already attending school will begin to argue (but the philosophers do this).
Your author avoids these intricate situations in one obvious way, not building his whole philosophy but observing only some "spots" or topics of life, which are relatively non-contradictory, and how the reader will link them in his head is, as they say, his own business. Besides, in the title stays the word "essays", what means tries, experiments, so that when the author is pushed in the corner he can always use the phrase, which sometimes use circus clowns, after choosing one person (as if) from the public, take his tie, cut it with scissors in small pieces, put them in a hat-cylinder, stir them good with a "magic" wand, and promise to take out the tie intact, and when can′t do this they say: "Well, there′s nothing to do, the experiment is not always successful".
Now let us come to the cynicism, but let us first cite one assertion of the Englishmen about the difference between the optimist and the pessimist when they see before them a bottle (presumably with some pleasing the soul drink) filled to the half. Then the pessimist used to say: "Ah, but the bottle is already half empty!", while the optimist exclaimed: "Oh, the bottle is still full to the half!". In this case the cynic just establishes the fact, no matter whether there is seven-years old whiskey or potassium cyanide, because he is interested only about the truth, independently of the emotions which it can bring. The cynicism can be opposed also to the euphemism, which is the desire to say only nice things, and can be defined (according to the author) in this way: euphemism is to call somebody "person", when he is merely — I beg to be excused — an ass. The "ass" here is just antipode of the face signifying the person, and it isn′t right to suppose that this book is full with "asses", this word even can′t be found anywhere in the text (but this does not hinder some of the readers to read it till the end, in order to check the truthfulness of this statement).
In other words, the cynicism of the author consists in this, to pronounce various, even shocking, statements, not making any efforts for applying of the necessary anti-shock therapy, when these statement are true in many life situations, because of primary value for him is the truthfulness of the said, not its aesthetical, moral, ideological, and so on sides. By the way, according to the attitude of the people to the truth is useful to make the following classification in three groups, namely:
a)
such, who look for the truth (exceptionally small minority, usually deprived of other pleasures in life, or forced to look for it because have chosen inappropriate area, in which to make career);
b)
such, who look for the lie (greater group but also minority, who receive enough privileges from this work of them, although is not excluded the variant to be on sufficiently high intellectual level for to have understood that the lie is more attractive than the truth and, hence, more desired by the people); and
c)
such, who search what they like, no matter is it truth or lie, i.e. they are
at all
(the vast majority of the people, who are not worried to deny something if they don′t like it, where, of course, what they like is not necessary to be something good according to the accepted in the moment belief, so that if someone likes, say, to stick a finger in his nose, then this is good for him, though not commonly accepted; or to watch sadistic films, when are speaking about tastes). In order to be cynic one must be intelligent, but the reverse statement is not necessary.
There is, however, one important moment with the cynicism: it may be shocking, but it is
, because each society strives to establish some euphemistic norms and in this way it denies the cynical truths, and also the forbidden fruit is almost always sweeter. So that, maybe, these cynical essays would appeal to some of the readers? In any case, the cynicism is not contagious disease, neither leads to addiction, and is healed very easy with ... watching the media for three months or so, after which there are no recidives.
If you, still, have been misled to buy this book without reading the foreword (or have been deceived
have read it), there is also nothing disastrous in this — you just give the book as present to some
your colleague or acquaintance, for whom you only think how to get rid of him. The book is the best and cheaper present, and the bad book is exactly the ideal present in such cases. So that: why not to buy it? I, personally, would have done this — had I not written it myself.
February 1999, Sofia, Bulgaria, Chris MYRSKI
— — — — —
ABOUT THE CREATION AND THE CREATED
I. The Creation
The creation of our world states one of the eternal questions, to which the humans have tried to find the answer during all historical times, and which are impossible to be answered until they are properly formulated. The whole mess here comes because of our efforts to get sensible answer to such questions like: who, when, how, and why has created the Universe, where the mere presence of these particles
some kind of answer, which could have satisfied us, and refuses the right answer. When we ask "who", this supposes that such being exists, and when we ask "why" — that the Creation has its reasons. But if there is "nobody", and if no special cause for this exists, and all has happened as a result of some processes? When the question begins with "when" or "how", this is more reasonable, but very difficult to be answered, because we are
beings, as in the time, so also in the space, and can′t comprehend the whole truth about gone away times. Besides, the question "when" means that we expect to be some beginning (and, maybe, also an end), what leads us to the association for "the egg and the hen", but in one cyclical process is meaningless to ask ourselves where is its beginning, and the only thing that we can do then is
some starting point, according to which to orient the time axis. Then the answer to the question "how" may be reduced to description of some regularities of the process, what might have been of importance for us if the Creation is not a single act but process continuing forever in the time, while by the single Creation (according to the Christianity) this should have only, as is said, "academical" meaning. So that instead of falling in such logical traps we shall start from the reality as end goal and will ask ourselves, which characteristics it has and what we may get as cause for these characteristics, i.e. will move deductively discovering the basic rules of our world, which produce the observed in it phenomena. This is more correct setting of the things, which avoids the above mentioned questions as meaningless, but may give satisfying explanation of the reality. Nobody hinders us, however, to suppose that there is
, who has made all this, if it is more comfortable for us so, wherein we shall try at least to make the things more interesting.
And now, imagine one omnipotent Being, living forever in the time and encompassing the whole space, Who just wonders what to do in order to spend more interesting His unending life. In other words, imagine that our "dear God" is engaged with the difficult task to invent
for Himself, having in mind that nothing usual would have satisfied Him, for He will always succeed to foresee it, but at the same time He has all the time in His disposition and does not know how to use it! What remains then to our God unless to invent some
, which will never bore Him? This is not a trivial task even for a God, because this "thing" that He has to create must exist forever and change itself forever, but so that even He alone to be not in position to know exactly what will happen in the given time and the given place! Our Being has unlimited time (so that the difficulty of the project can′t create any problems for Him), as well also materials for the creation of the "thing" (because He has at His disposition all possible, and even impossible, resources, needed for the creation of it), and also the possibility to inspire divine rules in it (which are to determine the interaction between the resources). Well then, let Him begin the work!
For the elaboration of actual project God must establish which resources from the unlimited number, that are at His disposal, to use, and also how to put them into effect. If He puts only by one resource in an established time and place in the space then this resource will dissipate around after some time and everything will stop or die (and if it does not dissipate at all then everything will be permanent, i.e. dead), and for such game He, surely, will not be game because if is very shallow, and He could always have imagined it in His vision. Hence, He must use simultaneously several resources, which
with each other, though also not so elementary that one of them just devours the others, but to exist
, where from one resource is going to another (then to some other, and so on), but sooner or later the situation to be able to return to some of the former states — what means that there must be some
cyclical interaction
. Now, this will enliven the things, but for one God there will be no problems, knowing the initial state, to compute the situation in each of the next moments, and this makes the game not very interesting. So that in addition to the decomposition of resources in mutually interacting cycles He will need
of the game, different from the temporal and spatial coordinates, and this is the
complexity
of building of the resources from simpler to more complex. But this is not the end of the postulates, for if the things could have only become more complex, then this also might have been predicted by some God, and, God forbid, everything becomes so complex that there emerges some other God, who will be infinitely complex! In other words, there must be some end of the complicatedness, in a similar way — via a cycle.
Let us repeat, there are needed several elementary resources, which must interact between them so that the system to be in incessant
, where by reaching of some critical concentration of some of the resources from them to be possible to build new resources, from the latter — other more complex, and so on, until reaching of some definite rate of complexity for each of the resources, when they must be able to decompose themselves in their simpler components. This time this will be one interesting and dynamical game, but our God, still, could have succeeded to guess what goes on in each moment and in each part of the space, because the things are
, and then this is not interesting. For one God, Who does not stop before any difficulty, remains the only "goal in life" to invent something
determined, or
arbitrary
, so that even
exactly, but only in outlines. Only such game is worth the trouble to be created!
Till here everything is nice, with the exception of two moments from the point of view of the God about Whom we are speaking. The first one is that if the very God can′t guess exactly the state of the "thing" then He isn′t really so omnipotent (but there is nothing to do here, because only such solution will be really interesting to be watched during the everlasting time). The second moment is that our God applies, in fact, the
of the set task, and for this some special "divine providence" is not needed — He acts according to the requirements of the logic. It is true that the details of the operation remain, but with a good plan everybody can elaborate the details, and the plan turns out to be dictated by the stipulations of the task, and whatever other plan would not have satisfied the requirements.
So that our divine hypothesis about the origin of this "thing", which we usually name Universe, is not at all necessary, when this is the only possible ever changing and stable way of functioning of the matter. Nothing hinders us to think that during the endless time preceding our have been tried various methods of interaction and have been shaped different types of matter with their laws, and by the other methods not stable material bodies have disappeared in one or another way and only the stable ones have remained. There is one universal method for creation and it is called
trial and error method
. This method works
, under the condition that we have in our disposition
time and infinitely many resources! In this situation it is of no importance whether we shall accept that some Being has known in advance what will work and what not, or this has been established after many many attempts in the everlasting time.
More than this, the acceptance of hypothesis for a divine Creation of the world does
but just shifts it, because then, naturally, arise the questions: who, when, why, and how has created this very God (or gods)! If the Creation has a beginning, then why this eternal Being has chosen exactly this moment for beginning, when He has always known everything and for Him each point in the time should have been equally suitable? If the matter has not existed before God has created it, then out of what is made He alone, as also
has made Him so everlasting and omnipotent? Even the assumptions that the very time and space were created by God, and as such have not existed before Him, helps us only for the questions "when" and "where", but there remains the "why", as also, mainly, "who" has created Him, in which case we are forced to allow the existence of some
, what again leaves the question open! And also the theory for divine Creation is necessary only
accepting the hypothesis of God, for to confirm His omnipotence, but it gives us no proofs for His existence, neither explains sufficiently good the real world at the level of our knowledge in current times. It is absolutely redundant and may exist only as one beautiful fable.
II. The Nature
The nature obeys some basic laws which determine its stability. They are well known, though may be formulated in other ways, and we can only remind them to you, evolving them to a better for understanding level.
1.
In each area the
equilibrium is maintained based on
at least two
opposite tendencies
, which are in incessant struggle between them moving from the one to the other. These opposites are in incessant interaction, but they form something united (what, from some other view point, might be only one of another pair of tendencies). There is just no other way for establishing of dynamical equilibrium (otherwise would have been statical equilibrium)! And without dynamics, i.e. without movement, or, said more generally, without changing, nothing happens in our Universe, only that the processes of change may be so slow that to look as motionless for us (for example: the life of our Sun compared with one human life span). There is of no principal meaning whether the things are two or more — the important thing is to be incessant change, or rather
cycle
, which is not necessary to be with exactly set constant period. This cycle we may imagine as a circle, or as some closed line (the mathematicians have special term for homomorphism, or maintaining of the form by elastic deformations, by which each closed line is homomorphic with the circle, and, in this sense, indistinguishable from it). In particular, if we turn one circle across and look at it from the side but remaining in the plane of the circle, then it degenerates in line segment, what is analogue of reciprocating movement, so that if one point is moving on a circle then it, looked from the side, will move like a piston. And, of course, it is not needed always to have points, bodies and real spatial circles, if we speak about changing of some tendencies or interactions (say, hot – cold, simple – complex, alive – dead, and so on).
Inasmuch, however, the next return in the same point (or condition) is not exactly the same but differs in some parameter, we may use also the more generalized notion for evolving spiral or snail (if the change happens in the same plane), or for coiled spring or solenoid (if we imagine the change also with another dimension) — in Latin both things are called helix. From these generalizations we can easily return to the cyclical notion, were it by squeezing of the spiral, were it by pressing of the solenoid (or its observing in direction of the axes of the spring). This generalized model is better because our world, how you look at it, is immensely complex and the returning always happens in some slightly different state. Besides, no experiment can repeat
(nobody can cross twice
river, as the ancient people have said), and we may regard this new dimension precisely as the time axes.
2.
Accumulating of big quantities
in one place
leads to emerging of new qualities
of the object in question, or, said in other words: the complex structures are built on the basis of more simpler ones. These, naturally, are only qualitative laws and nowhere is defined exactly what means "big quantities", neither "complex structures", but this is unavoidable, because each exact definition sets some type of
! The important thing is the multilayer building of the things in the Universe, and having in mind our (perpetually) restricted knowledge we can not know whether there are limits in our movement, as to the simpler, also to the more complex, so that it is accepted that it is unlimited (but in some cases it may be on the contrary). This hierarchy of complexity is not only manifestation of the organization in the nature (which can be attributed, by wish, to the divine origin of all that exists), but it is also the most important instrument for assistance of the human knowledge, because allows applying of different methods and building of various models of the real world at different
of inspection! If on a project for a house were pictured all distinct bricks (or grains of sand) it is hardly to believe that some builder would have found his way in it; as also if the human behavior was explained on atomic level, for example, we couldn′t have said anything about the functioning of the organism as a whole.
And one more important moment, which is consequence of the previous law: the necessity not only for the simple to go to the complex, but also vice versa — the complex to be in condition to decompose to the simpler in order to close the cycle also in relation of the complexity. The correct view is to observe the complexity as one
of material world, in which also is established the needed dynamical equilibrium between the creative and destructive forces. It is impossible to exist incessant creation without destruction, as it is impossible to exist life without death! Any negligence of one side leads to inevitable collisions, and as far as the human being finds as his principal task the creation, then the destruction most often happens in chaotic and cruel way. If our creation is only reaction of the unavoidable in the nature destruction then the human approach is, more or less, good, but with the increasing of our abilities, especially in the last centuries, is observed total helplessness worldwide before the destructive side of the pair of tendencies. It is up to us to balance it intelligently.
3.
The complex systems are /must_be built simply
! At a first sight this is the same about which we just talked, but here we are interested not in the changing of one quality into another, but in the way of escalating of the
quality. And the words "must be" we have added because if this principle is not observed then the things go not rightly, for the reason that the complexity begins to grow like avalanche and the system becomes confused, i.e. it would have got confused if this was artificial system, but in the nature confusion does not occur exactly because the complex is build in a simple way! Good, but what, after all, have we in mind here?
Well, it goes about how are built the rocks, for example, or the trees, or the galaxies, or our muscles, at cetera, at cetera. And they are built in such way that the complex system just
some simpler system and so on until is reached one simplest variant, which is the lowest level of the going to the new quality. In the example with the rocks then they are built from various boulders, which are built of smaller stones, and so on; the trees consist of branches, which ramify in smaller boughs, and so on till we come to the leaves; the muscles are built from tiny groups of fibers, and also by various fruits we have similar aggregating of the cells or the seeds (by the pomegranate, the fig, the melon, and others), or by the caviar of the fishes, which is enveloped in thin skins, or by the kidney, or by the brain of the mammals, and many more examples; and the same is the situation with the galaxies.
This question has been good enough investigated in the 20th century (not that earlier the people had not have similar ideas) by the modeling of artificial images — coastlines, landscapes, galaxies, trees, etc., and there is the important term called
recursion
, or also recurrence (what may be also something slightly different if we define it exactly). The tree is typical two-dimensional recursive structure widely used in computer science, but every mathematical expression is also something similar, because on the place of each letter can stay similar expression (here the recurrence by some formulas means expressing of a term of given series with previous terms of the same series). Similar meaning has the notion
fractals
, or fractal (i.e. partial) structure, what means such bodies (in the general case, but they may be also some curves), which consist of
, so to say, i.e. depending on the degree of
we can see one or another level of the bodies, where each level is made in one and the same way. In this situation it turns out that, for example, the coastal line can
be
measured, because all depends on the "stick" with which we measure, and the more we diminish the measuring unit the longer this line becomes, until we reach the atomic level.
As far as the fractality is new notion we may add also that it is related with a kind of
dimension (!), by which we may have such curve (one-dimensional object) that so turns around the plane that covers it entirely, and then our line has dimension two! Well, on a conceptual level the things can′t be explained exactly but similar lines we have, e.g., in the economics when follow the prices of a given product or currency for differently long periods (months, weeks, days). On this example can be seen that nothing hinders the fractals to be also probabilistic or random (the next principle below), neither is restricted the level of their application, where can exist fractal lines of the movement of elementary particles, as also to speak about fractality of whole galaxies. So that the
fractality is basic characteristic of the Universe
and it allows to easily build complex structures using recursive representation of simpler ones. If we approach algorithmically the question then this recursive algorithm will be simpler than some other one (say, cyclical). But the important thing here is that the fractality of our world is just the only maximally
decision that does not allow the complexity to become excessively high, and in the same time the very structures can be very complex. What has to say that also from this point of view our "god" has done nothing more than what he was
to do, if he has wanted to have easy coding of complex structures, for otherwise our world would not have been so stable, i.e. it wouldn′t have existed till now.
4.
Our world is not entirely determinate
, and it
can not exist without
involving
the randomness
! This has to say that all our knowledge is limited, not only by the current level of evolution of the sciences, but also by natural laws, which make it not enough defined in each concrete case, but only in more general statistical aspect. In the atomic physics has become necessary to make the assumption that for one material particle we can′t know both, its exact position and its velocity (the Heisenberg principle), and if we know the one thing, then we can′t find the other one. In the mathematical probability theory is stated something, at a first sight, pretty Jesuitical for the uninitiated reader, namely that
! This, however, is fully justified from the point of view of diversity in the Universe, where exactly this uncertainty allows easy and unpredictable changes, gives one more dimension of the dynamism. At the level of organized matter this is expressed via inaccuracy in copying of the genetic code, as also in various defects of this matter, but similar defects are observed also by the unorganized matter, and if some of them are not entirely indeterminate then it becomes necessary for the arbitrariness to manifest itself at atomic and subatomic level — in the Brownian motion, for example. For this reason in each repetition of some process in the time it has all chances to differ a little from the previous period; we may try to study it as much as possible but the Nature (or God, if this suits you better) has taken measures always to remain something undefined. Without the randomness the things would have been easier for us, but at the same moment also much more boring and identical.
in the concrete case, combined with exact regularities in the general one. Is this good or bad doesn′t matter — just this is our world.
Inasmuch, though, as well the randomness so also the inaccurate knowledge have the same effect for us, which reduces to some degree of ignorance, there is not big difference to what we shall attribute this lack of knowledge — it is important to have it in mind in our models and scientific theories. So for example, when we toss a coin we know that there is probability of 1/2 for it to fall on a given side, and if we could have absolutely faultlessly take into account all factors that determine its position, then we maybe could have computed exactly on which side it will fall? Yeah, but we can′t do this! And whether we will think, that we can′t take all these factors in consideration because our knowledge is still pretty powerless (i.e. we can′t know the behaviour of each single atom — and why not also electron? — from the surrounding the coin air in every moment), or will assume that the Brownian motion of the particles of air does not allow us to know exactly which is the place and the velocity (as vector, including the direction of movement) of each single particle, for us this makes practically no difference. Similar is the situation also by the research of the market, by the demography, the heredity, and where else not. However much we expand our knowledge of the general case, the particular case will always remain for us one "magic", but as far as we are interesting in the results, the causes are not so important.
III. The Organized Matter
The organized matter provides a higher level of complexity, because here are united in one piece various simpler elements (molecules, groups of cells, organs), which have common life goals, and the different elements have some degree of specialization in functioning of the whole organism. There arise at least two different stages of existence, namely: adult organism and seed (i.e. some information about the building and functioning of the developed organism), what gives bigger endurance of the organism (at the stage of the seed), as also more elaborate idea for changing of life with death of the organism. In other words, while the unorganized matter may only grow old and decay, and its new origination depends on
interactions, then the organized matter may
reproduce
itself. In this way the cycle life – death for a given organism may be directed by the very species, and the reproduction of the species becomes main goal of the organism. Within the boundaries of the known part of the Universe so far is not found other way of existence of organized matter (because there was not discovered another such matter) except based on long organic molecules, where to be coded the genetic code, but this does not mean that there can′t exist organization on some other basis. The computer viruses, for example, have the fundamental property for reproduction, which is written on non-organic material medium, and they are example for
"organism" that can exist in a medium of elementary memory cells (regardless of their basis). It isn′t insuperable problem the creation of mechanical devices which can reproduce itself (together with the reproductive unit), where in this way the stage of the seed may become unnecessary, so that it is not excluded in near future to become witnesses also of artificial life.
The organized matter on Earth includes the plants and the animals, but we will discuss mainly some common characteristics of the
animals
, so that saying "life" we shall understand specifically the animals, though some of the mentioned below laws exist in certain (embryonic) form also by the plants. So far as in this review we are moving from lower to higher degree of complexity (in order to reach in the next section to the humans), we may also understand higher animals, though this is not obligatory. Here we shall formulate some basic principles, which do not pretend for completeness, but are of big importance because are useful for explanation of various phenomena of life, and which are answered more precisely (and thus more restricted) in the corresponding specialized sciences.
1.
The perceptions of the life are characterized with centered modal scale
! We shall explain this starting from the ability of life to mirror in some way the real world in itself and to measure quantitative differences in a given parameter, which it uses in forming of its behaviour in various situations. By this reflection the corresponding organs for perception must take into account the above mentioned natural laws and, in particular, by reaching of one of the pair opposite tendencies to be able to go in the contrary tendency but moving
direction, for to close the cycle. If we use the analogy with some measuring device, then its scale (we mean analog one) cam be: either some line segment, and in this case when reaching of one of the extreme positions the device ceases (temporarily or permanently) to measure; or else some closed line (circle), in which case when reaching of a given conditional end position we begin new turn on the device from the other end position (which is the same one). The linear scale is imperfect at the ends, and as far as the tendency which we measure can significantly exceed the boundaries of the measuring device (perceptual organ) it becomes often necessary to work exactly at the ends. The cyclical scale, on the other hand, is universal, only that by it the measurement (i.e. the perception, here) may be highly imprecise, in sense to be
, but this is the most often chosen by the Nature decision, because
! Such cyclical scale in the mathematics is called modal, by modulus of the highest number (like the days of the week are computed by modulus 7, and all digital counters work by modulus some power of the ten), and if the zero is in the middle of the scale (as it is with the thermometer, only that it′s not modal) then it is also centered.
The simplest analogy is to imagine some flexible thermometer that measures from -50
o
C to +50
o
C, and which we have bent so in circle, that both end positions are glued (and the device works!). In this situation, when the temperature becomes +51
o
C we will read -49
o
C. The examples for this law are very many and vary from the most elementary sensitive perceptions to the most complicated (and inherent only to the humans) feelings, say: by contact to a frozen object with naked hand we feel and experience burns (of different degrees); by too loud noise — deafen; by strong light — go blind; the sweetness, when becomes too much, begins to taste bitter; the love borders with the hatred (this is the most primitive, but also most usual reaction to excessive strengthening of this emotion); the strength — with the weakness, and vice versa; the bravery turns to cowardice, and the latter may turn to the biggest bravery; the laughter often changes to weeping and vice versa (especially by the children, but also by the women); the genius borders with the stupidity (and sometimes conversely); and so on. But these perceptions
correspond to the reality, because there is nothing in common between +50
o
and -50
o
, for example, neither between the wavelengths of violet and red colours, but we naturally pour out the one thing into the other, as if they are adjacent. These are not paradoxes but
for our sensitive organs and emotional reactions — if our knowledge comprises also the law of the modal scale of perceptions. So that if someone succeeds, say, to prevent his love from turning to hatred (or at least to jealousy), changing it to indifference (the zero-point of the scale, which is diametrically opposed to the strong love or hatred), then exactly
behaves paradoxically, although reasonably (because the manifestation of reason in the human reactions is only an exception).
2.
The reflection in the life is conditional and distorted
, where "conditional" here means that the reality is accepted depending on the internal state of the organism, i.e. of its memory, instincts and reflexes, but also on the environment and situation; and "distorted" means that, for one thing, the scale of the perception differs from that of the reflected phenomenon, and, for another thing, the reflection is inaccurate and deformed. In short, the life "measuring devices" are of poor quality and biased, but exactly this is the purpose of life reflection, because it in some extent prepares the taking of decision. By the higher animals exist specialized organs for perception, storing, processing of the information, and acting according with the conditions, which are missing by the lower species, but the higher also use the conditional perception, because it allows more effective usage of the information since in this way it is somewhat processed. The point is that, if some image symbolizes danger, on the basis of previous experience, then the animal is ready to react without much "thinking" and detailed analyses, and if some other situation symbolizes food it prepares for its accepting. In this aspect can exist difference by some artificial intelligence, for example, where we would have put exactly specialized organs, which are first to register the situation and later to analyze it, where by the life these two processes are united (even with the needed answer to the situation); it may be taken that this is one evolutionary forced method of functioning of the higher animals as taken from the lower ones, but for the moment it proves to be more suitable when fast reaction is necessary, and that is why the human beings very often rely on their instincts and reflexes, not on their intellect, which would have given more precise, but also more slowly made decision (see "About the intellect", too). In any case, some conditionality very often is necessary. Approximately the same meaning has the term
of the life, where this, what is not interesting for the organism, is rejected and is accepted only the necessary, to what is reacted. And surely this, that the reflection by the life
is better then the modeled artificial intelligence does not mean that it will remain so also in the future.
As to the distorted reflection is minded that the majority of sensitive scales are logarithmic (i.e. they measure in "times"), but this is good in order of widening of the range of perceptions (at the expense of the accuracy, which usually is of not big importance). This, what isn′t very good, are the different defects of the corresponding sensitive organs, but if the nature has rejected the defects at all then this would have significantly lessened the adaptability of the life, because exactly the various defects are these, that allow for an easy applying of the trial and error method, with the subsequent fixing of the appropriate changes or mutations in the genetic code, so that: every cloud has a silver lining!
3.
The reactions of the life are inadequate to the irritants
. This is natural consequence of the organization of the matter, for which the Newton′s law is not valid. This, however, does not mean that the reactions are unpredictable or random (though this also happens sometimes), but that they are rather
, or counteracting so the irritant that it to become: either eliminated, if this is possible; or obediently accepted, if this is unavoidable! More precisely this means that
to stronger irritants the corresponding reaction is weak, and to weaker ones — stronger
, where only as an exception is possible adequate reaction to irritant of medium strength! Such is the situation from the most primitive animals and up to the most highest and the humans (what is treated more profoundly in the essay "About the violence"). Here we will permit ourselves only to mention that this inadequate reaction is
, from the point of view of the interaction in the nature, but it isn′t very reasonable to be massively applied by the humans, when there are more reasonable reactions.
IV. The Human Being
The human being is considered as crown of the Creation, but this statement is prompted by an ordinary egocentrism. If the worm, for example, was able to think then it most probably would have also contemplated itself as the most perfect being, because it lives almost everywhere, and has simplified structure, what means more reliable, and reproduces easily by mere division, and its feeding is not related with special difficulties, and it does not know the killing, and does not suffer from mental illnesses, of drug addiction, or sexual perversions, et cetera. (We must treat, generally said, the lower animals and the plants with certain understanding and gratitude, because they not only are evolutionary precursors of the higher animals, but without them the life of the latter would have been impossible.) This, what can be said about the human being, is that he: belongs to the class of higher mammals, leads gregarious lifestyle, is considered omnivores, characterizes with year-round sexual activity, and has more developed mental abilities (although he doesn′t use them so far especially good) than various other animals. Only we, naturally, don′t intend to perform here more profound physiological, anatomical, psychological, or whatever other description of the human, but only to stress on some mass delusions due to his unreasonable
, which is useful for everyone to have in mind. They are the following:
1.
The nature is completely indifferent to the human
, no matter whether we like this or not! Nobody makes a thing in order to please the human — neither the inanimate matter, nor a plant, nor some other animal. But exactly for this reason almost every human being drives into his head that everything turns around him, and even has devised since deep antiquity some imaginary immaterial gods, who have no other work but just to think about the humans and how to make them better, or how to punish them when they misbehave. From the viewpoint of nature the human being is only a kind of biological matter and there are no reasons to think that even the whole mankind is with something more valuable from whichever of the billions and billions of stars dispersed within the space. Even compared with the size of our globe the human being is not more than a microbe in a bucket of water. This, what we imagine about ourselves, is irrelevant to the life in the Universe; even if we decide to blow up the whole Earth this will show no influence over the cosmic existence. The contrived by us notions about good or evil
with the nature, only with us alone, so that it is high time to substitute them with something more environmental, because otherwise the nature will "avenge" for our ignorance as it only suits it (or "her",
). It is high time to cease, or at least to restrict, our ambitions to rebuild the world according to our wishes, and to beat the breasts and laugh self-contented when we occasionally succeed in this. The nature is indifferent to us and
, who must be interested in it, because it not at all is irrelevant to the human, as far as he lives within it.
2.
The human being is
, at least not in the sense of complete, last, unrivaled! He is not perfect because he does not adapt well to the environment, does
into it, but tries to adjust the environment according to himself. It is clear that each animal tries, a little or more, to change the environment preparing for itself at least some lair, or making supplies of food, etc., but only the human being does not balance well his purposes with the maintaining of environment and, for example: destroys more resources than he needs; kills not to feed himself but for the pleasure (or the kick) of it; builds enormous human anthills not because of necessity but because it is easier so and out of unreasonable pride; and so on. Perfect in his way is the lizard, because when it tears the tail then later grows itself a new one, but we can′t do so; or the other mammals, who bear in most primitive but natural conditions, while the humans (i.e. the women) have already unlearned this; or the bear, because it sleeps for 3-4 months, when the living conditions are unfavorable for it, but we can′t sleep through, say, one economical crisis; or the ants, because they have such social organization to which we can be only envious, or carry loads about ten times heavier than their own weight, build skyscrapers bigger than ours (compared with their size) and this from very nondurable materials or with things at hand; the monkey, which can hang on its own tail and climb the trees, while we, since have come down from them, now never climb again; the squirrel, which although has no wings but can very successfully glide down; the fly, if you want, which is so resistant that nothing can obliterate it, because have existed in the time of dinosaurs and will, most probably, exist after the humans vanish from the surface of the planet; and so on, and so on. In other words,
the humans have no
, but this is double-edged sword and it is far from clear whether this is for good or for bad!
For those who might have objected that the humans have achieved great success in society, have created arts and sciences, etc., can be mentioned that almost in every area of human knowledge we are
from the end goals in the given domain, for example: the medicine still largely cuts and substitutes, instead of to heal the ailing organ or to grow it from a pair of cells; the stomatology also has still not invented a method for growing anew the teeth of a person (and when once in life they fall out and new ones grow again, then it must be entirely possible to make this as much times as we want, only that we don′t know how); the jurisprudence is a "pail of grief" because has still not found a way for objective justice (as long as a human being takes part in the system of judgement, works for payment and exists direct contact between judge and defendant, there will unavoidably be present the corruption and partiality); the art suffers from lack of objective and timely assessment of its works; the society as a whole still has not established specialization of the individuals from the moment of their birth, while each non-unicellular organism has such one for its cells; the politics is based on mere outwitting between politicians and popular masses, as also on partial meanings, and there can′t, still, be found a way for prediction of behaviour of the individuals in various situations, or for developing of some new abilities like telepathy (which, obviously, is possible for some individuals in particular moments), telekinesis and other similar things; there are still not discovered some time waves or other ways for evident presence in other times (at least for monitoring of the past, if by the future might have arisen some paradoxes); there are no initiations for reaching to the secrets of gravity, and without it the space flights remain just a beautiful dream; and so on. And there is no sense to excuse ourselves with this, that the other animals have also not (yet) reached to such heights, because we have already noted that in many concrete areas the animals are more specialized and better suited than the humans. It is true that the mere notion of perfection supposes the
to reach it (for having reached this stage there is no sense in any further movement ahead), but in this respect we may be absolutely sure, because there is simply no such danger for the human beings.
3.
The human being
practically
lacks free will
to act according to his wishes, and even these wishes are wide away from free but dictated by various necessities related with his organization and functioning! Put it otherwise: the human is result of
, to which they are directed; or the humans only for this reason think that they are free because they are
conscious of their wishes but not of the causes
, that force them! The freedom, of course, is a relative notion, because in our infinitely interconnected world the freedom of one of its elements is expressed in some restriction of the other one, so that it is a question of equilibrium, especially in individual aspect. But we are not speaking about some abstract freedoms, like: dominance over
the others, or the freedom to choose one′s parents, or whether to be born or not, and the meaning of our statement is that in many cases when we think that we are free we just
; or, respectively, we do something best of all when we don′t know why we do it! Well, nobody hinders us to fall in self delusion, when we like this so much, and it also helps (and there is even always somebody to spare us the work to delude ourselves alone) but the truth is that our behaviour is, anyhow, programmed, something what, after the contemporary achievements of the genetics, must be obvious. We have some freedoms, especially the freedom to
, but even this freedom for errors can be (and it is) programmed, because the errors are manifestation of the randomness of our world. If we use one word from the jargon of computer scientists we can say that the people are a kind of "intelligent terminals", what means that they are end devices which can work in autonomous mode, but are connected in one common network (the network of the society and nature). But surely the other animals are also not much autonomous, if this gives us any comfort.
4.
The human being is just another natural experiment
, in the process of its incessant evolution, and even this, will it turn our to be successful or not, does not depend much on us alone. Well, we have some right to choose, as for example: to create appropriate artificial life, serving as necessary step to it (and will we by this disappear entirely, or will retain some reasonable population of, say, 50-100 millions of people on the world globe, this isn′t essential); or to eradicate the life on Earth, and it together with the life, returning it to the condition of primary chaos, and in this way to close the cycle of complication of life (something what, anyway, will happen sooner or later); or to succeed to mutate up to such degree that to become
thinking animals (i.e. first to think and than to act, and this from the point of view of the entire nature, not according to our wishes), i.e. not as we are now — beings
to think (only that we do this after having spent all
methods for reaching of the goal); or to flood the galaxy with our expansive and socially primitive civilization, until beings from another galaxies, or primeval natural forces, will be necessary to intervene to moderate us; or some other possibility which is attainable for us. What option we will choose depends on us and the nature, but the bad thing is that even this is of no big importance for the nature (only that this matters for us), because for the nature
matters! The nature (or our dear God) makes experiments, for to pass the time, only that all this falls on our backs. But there is nothing to be done here — this is the essence of Creation and we are just one link in it.
And now this is all, that can be said about the Creation and created, if we don′t want to enter into great details, because if we begin to look more profound then there will be no end in this. It is better to live our lives, till we can do this, and, if possible, without hindering especially the others and without speeding up the coming of the chaos. In other words, let us leave the
named life to continue according to its rules and not to invent new ones.
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