In the Beginning was the Word

What are Words?

Words are symbols to communicate with.  We have character symbols that represent the words we can write and read.  Vibrations in the air represent words too.  The words are not in the character symbols or vibrations in the air. 

Transforming senses into symbols

Words are ideas in our brains.  Words exist in our minds.  We can only physically sense the words when we imprint them or move the air.  Words must exist inside us before we can use them.

We experience the worlds with our senses.  Sight, smell, and sound inform our experience; our knowledge of the world.  These experiences are captured in our brains.  Networks of neurons capture what we sense.  Neurons do not capture the reality outside of us. 

Our minds store metaphors of reality.  Our brains have patterns that reflect our experience of reality.  Neurons capture a symbol of what we experienced.  The smell of a rose is not what we have in our brains.  A symbol that helps us recall the smell does exist.  When a similar symbol comes to us again, we know what it is through our experience. 

Learning the smell of roses

A child develops experience before words.  We lay down symbols of reality as soon as our senses and brains become engaged.  Only when enough experience of reality has shaped our brains with information, can we start to abstract that experience into words.

Words are how we share our experience.  Words are our shared model of reality.  We learn our words from each other.  Our brains learn to assign the words to what we have sensed.  

Meaning in Mind

Words are symbols held in our brains.  Our pattern of neurons hold these symbols of writing separate from the experience they represent.  The words “the rose smell” are stored in our brains.  “The rose smell" is stored both as remembered sensation and as a set of words associated with the sensation.  Words seem to have an existence of their own.  The words are not the remembered smell. Words are references of smell abstracted into other networks of neurons.

Creating meaning from links

These stored sense memories and their associations as words are models of the world made into physical reality.  The model of reality existing in our brains is a physical thing of matter and energy.  Words are written into our brains. 

Many kinds of living beings have sense memory.  Stored experience of reality as it is sensed is an old trick of life forms.  The storage of what is experienced as a symbol to be used later has a significant competitive advantage.  Symbols stored in physical reality and recalled for later use give primitive mind to even the lowest of creatures.

Meaning begins when symbols are linked with experience.  The very meaning of meaning is that some symbol is held to be similar to another.  These associations of stored symbols in our brain define the world to us.

Symbols give our minds existence.  Without a model of reality, thought can not exist.  Thoughts are models of reality moving from form to form in time.  Our brains sequence through models of reality, symbolic representations of experience, when we think. 

One can then say the word was the beginning of the human mind.  The human mind transformed by development of symbols.  Brains sharing symbols of experience was the start of culture.   We consider ourselves superior to other life forms because we share our internal metaphors of reality with each other.

Sharing symbols helps us all understand more reality.  Metaphors of reality not yet experienced directly can prepare us to deal with them when we do.  Words provide us with a tool to transcend beyond our own bodies to a larger time and space.  Our senses are extended by the words we associate with them.

Often words are used with multiple meanings.  One symbol can be associated to different sensed realities.  Take the word Kind for instance.  Kind is linked with “things that are similar”.  Kind is also linked with “friendly, generous or empathy”.  These different meanings are stored separately in our brains and only linked by how communicate them.  The spoken or written use of the word Kind is the same. The meaning, the association, the link to our sense experience with the word Kind is different.

Symbolic Limits

The average human knows less than 20,000 words.  English contains about 600,000 words if you include root words and derivatives.  This means most of us know about 3% of the words existing in our own culture.

Some words get used more than others.  Some parts of reality are experienced by few of us, often in one special practice or another.  Plumbers have their own words for their trade.  Physicists have special words rarely used by others.  Preachers have a vocabulary of their own.  Unique sensory experience provides each of our minds with its own set of metaphors for engaging reality with.

Words are links to stored sensations.

There are many words we each know.  There are many more we do not yet know.  Of all the possible sensory experiences of reality, we are limited to only those we are exposed too.  Even by extending our experience using the words of others, we are still limited to the total set of experiences that all minds have. Our limits in time and space place a limit on the vocabulary we can ever develop.

Discovering new means of sensing the world expands our vocabulary.  Sensing electricity transformed our experience of reality.  Close observation of the planets allowed us to sense gravity differently.  The microscope opened a new set of sensory data to us.  Each of these new experiences caused a change in words. Some words were transformed and others created to help us give meaning to the novel experience.

Are there an infinite number of sensory experiences?  If so then there are infinite numbers of words. 

There are certainly more experiences and words to call them than we can all ever imagine.

Belinda is My Bride Today

Belinda and I will exchange vows and rings today.

We are having a Dr. Who themed wedding.

Hope to post pictures here in a couple of weeks.

The photo below is the episode our costumes are from.

Thanks ahead of time to Belinda's family and our friends for all their help and patience in pulling off today's events.  It is good to be amongst such lovely people.

Are We Listening?

The plants and animals
And stars and dirt 
And ocean and air 
And gravity and light 
And charge and spin 
And all the various 
Forms and flows 
Of all matter and energy 
Not yet even sensed 
Existing beyond capability 
To understand remotely
In one tiny little corner 
Of a single blue planet 
Circling an obscure star 
In a galaxy of billions
Shouts loudly. 

To listen
To only a single book 
And then cease hearing 
All the rest of creation 
Is to turn away 
From the awesome.

Us, Me, or We?

Our desire for a particular political ideology is highly driven by our self esteem.  

He is just better than everyone else

Those who think they are better than every one else tend to want no holds barred competition.  Those who are less sure of themselves want to be apart of a group.

From a political perspective, timid humans trend toward communism while egocentric people trend toward anarchy. 

Communists tend to be altruistic and Libertarians tend to be selfish.  

It is more dangerous on the norm to be surrounded by Libertarians than Communists.

The optimal utility for society will most probably be a mixture of these two extremes

Thought Experiment

Pretend for a moment you secretly think you are better than everyone else.  Your natural talents, current resources, and/or knowledge make you a better human being than most of the people around you.

What kind of political system/structure would you want to exist in?

     a) everyone on a big team

     b) lots of small teams 

     c) every man for  himself 

Now pretend that you think your just normal/average, a little bit less educated, do not have so many resources and/or are lacking in some natural talents.

Look at that list again.  What kind of political system/structure would you want to exist in?

People who think they have an advantage will be less likely to want to be on a team.  They tend to believe their personal merit will allow them to do better in a competitive situation on their own.  Given the chance to compete one-on-one, they think they will win.

People who think they are less capable want to have the infrastructure of a team.  They hope their lack of personal merit will be supported by others who have different strengths and weaknesses.  Given the chance to be on a team, they think they will win.

Safety in Numbers

We Are Together

Communism and Socialism are examples of society as a big team.  

Examine from the lens of self esteem, "communism" is about spreading all the skills evenly so no one has unfair advantage.  All skills are normalized in value toward the benefit of the team.

From this perspective "socialism" can be seen as a team which spreads risk but is configured for more personal advantage to be allowed, as long as it benefits all.

The Uber Man

Cream Rise On Up

On the other end of the spectrum we have Anarchism and Libertarianism as trending individualistic political structures.

“Anarchy” systems are generally focused on individuals, have minimal formal rules and eschew systematized political teams.

While allowing for more interconnectedness through transactional systems, "libertarianism" is also very focus on individual merit and achievement.

A fundamental part of both these theories is that the best/fittest individuals should be able to rise to positions of strength and power.

We Can Do It

In between these two extremes of anarchy and communism lie a great many flavors of political formulation.  Oligarchy, monarchy, democratic, republic, federalism and others are based on larger or smaller teams of people working in concert and competition toward an end.  

 

Many competing teams in the whole

These in between political structures for this discussion are grouped together because they share in common a limited interdependence and a since of shared risk and reward among group members.  There may be a supreme leader or not.  There may be regular transfer of power or not.  

The in between political structures are different means for those with more perceived merit to have some more independence of action and those of less perceived merit to be more controlled.  All attempt to setup a situation that allows the cream to rise to the top for the good of many.

Analysis

The link between political affinity and self esteem is not an absolute.  It is a trend.

If you take any one individual who thinks to become a communist, they may not have low self esteem.  In large groups however, the trend toward lower self esteem and desire for being the member of a protective grouping is clear.

Likewise, not every anarchists and libertarians will be selfish ego-maniacs. Like with many fluid natural systems, the attraction to self aggrandizement will trend more people in that direction.

There is clear data about self esteem and team participation.   There was no clear quantifiable data that I could find showing the exact distribution of self esteem to political persuasion.   

My understanding is that self esteem is self reported and the results are skewed in most surveys about political persuasion because of the nature of question being asked.

My hypothesis is that we would look for bell curve like distribution models of self esteem based on group dependency/inter-dependency beliefs in direct correspondence with political persuasion.

Individuals who are surrounded by altruistic actors will have a competitive advantage over those surrounded by the selfish actors.

Gaming theory studies on competitive versus cooperative behavior patterns in nature show a clear advantage toward the cooperative individual’s survival.  

There are some systems that thrive on pure competition; however their ecological stability is much harder to maintain making them rare and often fragile ecosystems.

Examples of this stability of cooperation exist within in plants and individual cells.  The cell groups that cooperate in a plant have proven very successful evolutionary.  Even individual cell organisms are collections of parts in cooperation.  Life itself evolves to those systems of cooperators because of the specific advantages spread risk and shared power brings.

Conclusion

Libertarians trend to have more self worth, self regard, self respect, self integrity and be more self centered and selfish.

Communist trend to have low self worth, self regard, self respect, self integrity and be more group oriented and selfless.

Any one individual who is surrounded by self centered and selfish people will be more apt to fail.

Any one individual who is surrounded by selfless and altruistic people will be more apt to succeed.

Notes

Here are some relevant papers worth reading if you’re interested in exploring these ideas more deeply

"Psychological Sources of Political Belief: Self-Esteem and Isolationist Attitudes"

"Understanding Party Identification: A social identity approach"

"Evolutionary Algorithms in Theory and Practice"

"The Effects of Biased Self-Perception in Teams"

"Overconfidence and team-performance"

"Belbin Team Role Theory"

Justice, Revenge, and Punishment

When we say "We are going to make an example of him", what do we mean?

What is the purpose of inflicting pain and violence on others in the name of "justice"?


Revenge is Payback

Should an angry parent be spanking a child?  Is the spanking about revenge or helping the child become a better person?  Is the parent working through their frustration or helping the child to think morally?

Is the grownup inflicting pain through spanking going to be a better person for the act?

What is the effect on the child to know that anger expressed as violence drives its pain?  What lesson is really being taught to the child?

Why would we think its wrong when a stranger spanks our child but assume its right when we do?

How is society different when it inflicts pain on an individual who commits a crime?  When society acts in anger and revenge does society become better?

Irony or hypocrisy?

Are humans more likely to stop their criminal behavior because they have had violence or pain inflicted upon them?

Punishment is too often about revenge.

Retaliation may be momentarily gratifying, but it is not a sound basis for law or education.

Retaliation is about spite and vindictiveness.  Taking joy in the delivering pain to others dehumanizes us.

Increasing the severity of punishment makes us feel like we are hurting the criminal.  We desire to inflict pain upon them.  When our law becomes about revenge, we lower ourselves to the level of the crime.  When we  use our anger and pain as the tool of expressing justice, we subvert it.


Means to and End

The purpose of of punishment is to stop a child or criminal from actions that are bad for themselves or society.  The purpose of punishment should never be so that the victim of bad behavior gets vengeance.  Vengeance is morally wrong.

There are four kinds of punishment; physical, verbal, withholding, and penalty.

Physical and verbal punishment have been shown in research to not work (see here and here).  Physical and verbal punishment may make us feel better, but simply do not accomplish the goal of justice.

Withholding and penalty punishments have been shown to be strong behavior modifiers.  Systems of justice based on withholding and penalty create a better society for individuals to live in.

People get better when they acknowledge they did wrong and strive to change.  This change toward better behavior ought to be the goal of justice.

Change comes from the inside.  It is our desire to be better that engenders change.  Change enforced from the outside rarely works.

Physical Punishment

A swat on the bottom is a mild physical punishment.  While it may do no permanent physical harm, it does not help the child develop a conscience. Instead, it teaches that physical violence is an acceptable way of dealing with problems.

Many of us grew up with being spanked and think we came out "OK". When you were spanked, how often was anger involved?  When you spank, how often is your desire for revenge involved?  What is the real lesson that was taught?  If we look at our own souls in the mirror can we not say there could have been a better way?  Is using violence to solve problems what we want to teach our children?

If this is wrong, why are other body parts right?

Parents who use physical punishment are setting an example of using violence to settle problems or solve conflicts, Children imitate their parents’ behavior. When parents use physical punishment, children are more likely to use violent acts to settle their conflicts with others.

Consider that if there is a way to teach the child that does not involve violence, why are you using violence?  

Teachers are able to maintain disciplined classrooms without resorting to violence.  It shows that there are other effective means of achieving discipline.

Physical punishment of criminals also has been shown not to be effective in changing behaviors.  Physical pain allows the individual to think they have "paid for the error".  It isolates the error behavior and the punishment as a single transaction.  Physical punishment frees a person from feelings of remorse.  Without remorse, there is no change to behavior.

When thinking about physical punishment, is may help to remember an ironic old saying "The beatings will continue until morale improves."  Morale or morality never improves because of violence.


Verbal Punishment

His concern is not justice.

Verbal aggression is just words right?  As the nursery rhyme says "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but names can never hurt me".  This rhyme simply is not factual.

Words have the power to shape our minds.  Words can do great good or evil upon our persons.  Research shows children who are verbally abused are almost twice as likely to become juvenile delinquents or adult criminals.

Verbal aggression toward adults frequently leads to more violent acts by the criminal.  Telling someone off, giving them a piece of our minds is about our desire to express our emotion and not about changing the behavior of the person who did the crime.

Verbal punishment is too often really a form of bullying.  Violence of the mind is still violence upon our person.


Withholding

A time for reflection.

Withholding could be a "time out" or a "take away".  When an action or object of desire is removed from a child they have to deal with their desire as a result of the punishment.  Dealing with desire for a toy or freedom to play sets up a situation where the child can evaluate what they have done.  Time for self reflection is where we develop our conscious and learn to control our will.

Isolating a person from what it wants give it time to reflect.  Isolating a child is not about punishment, rather about education.  When we give a child a "time out" we help them become better.

Removing criminals from society is an effective means of giving them time to reflect on their crime.  Putting a bunch of criminals together in a crowded room often can subvert the purpose of isolation, however the failings of our current criminal justice system are not the topic of this blog entry.   Removing criminals from society also protects society from the bad actors.

Sometimes a person can never learn to be better; perhaps they are mentally ill or psychopathic.  In these cases it may never be possible to return a criminal person to normal society.  For the protection society  the criminals permanent removal is a necessary tragedy for both society and the criminal.


Penalty Punishment

Is this Justice?  Will it make their society better?

Consequences teach responsibility.  The world in which we live are full of consequences.  Often using the real world consequences of actions can help motivate us to change our behaviors.

Penalty punishments are about  using consequences, results of our actions, to change our behavior.  Penalty punishments are not about doing violence upon our persons or minds.

To be effective, penalty punishments must engage the person to do better.  The errant child or convicted criminal needs to see they must change what they do in the future.

To be effective, penalty punishments must relate the penalty to the offense.  If one doesn't wash their clothes, then they must either be naked or wear dirty clothes.  If one doesn't brush their teeth, their teeth will rot.  If one doesn't do their homework, they will fail in school.


Deterrence and Discipline

If our goal is deterrence then it is not the severity of the punishment, but the certainty of the punishment that matters.

If a person thinks they can get away with crime, they are more apt to try it.  If a person is fairly sure they will get caught, they will be deterred.

The death penalty only stops people from doing a crime if they think they will be caught.  A less severe penalty will also deter if the potential criminal knows they will be caught.

Severe punishment is about revenge.

Teaching discipline through non-violent means

There is a world of difference between "discipline" and "punishment".

Discipline is about learning to control one's actions.  Discipline can be learned without punishment.  Discipline can be learned by example, practice and reason.  We can teach our children discipline through sports, chores, and the example of our lives.

When we use the world "discipline" as a synonym for "punishment" we are often trying to justify to ourselves our desire to do violence.

The more effective we are at teaching good behaviors, the less need there is for punishment.  An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure in justice as well as medicine.

So where do you draw the line between justice and revenge?



Note: If you think spanking is a good thing, here is a pamphlet used to train teachers about effective discipline from the Virginia Tech.

Idea Vacuum

Ideas are neutral.

Ideas by themselves have no right or wrong, good or evil.

Actions can be right or wrong.

Actions can do good or evil.

Reading a Sherlock Holmes story about a murder does not make the reader or the writer a murderer.  The idea of 'murder' in the story is neutral.

Someone who read about a murder in a Sherlock Holmes story and then committed a murder should be condemned for the act of murder, not for the reading of a Sherlock Holmes story.

Without an understanding of what evil is, we are unable and unprepared to avoid it.  How can we recognize evil if we do not learn about it?

Ignorance of bad ideas is not safe.  Acting like the mythical ostrich and burying our head in the sand does not make acts of evil go away.  The ostrich is more likely to be eaten by the wolves with its head buried.

The trick is to learn how to filter our actions based on what we have learned.  The more we learn, the less ignorant we are, the more capable we are of recognizing good, the more apt we will do good.

Have a vacuum cleaner mind and suck up those ideas, clean ones, dirty ones, and ones in-between.  Sometimes it is good when life sucks!

Bearing Arms

 The constitution is neutral about what kinds of arms we choose to bear.   

We citizens, however, seem to have a preconceived notion of which kinds of arms we want to bear. 

The debate never seems to get to chemical, nuclear, biological, weapons.  No one is advocating we all should be able to buy tanks or aircraft carriers.  

The strongest and perhaps most dangerous arms we possess are our minds, which we often choose not to bear at all.

It seems rather that we have a narrow historical view of "the good old days".  An imaginary past that we wish to cherish for its strengths and ignore for it failures.