Tigger Warning

Luckily I'm not the first to think of this pun.

From DeviantArt

Recently I realized that something is basically acting as a trigger for anxiety. This is good because I can now focus on separating the thing from the anxiety, so that I can handle both in an appropriate way, instead of just reacting to anxiety and not really dealing with the thing.

This is also good because as I was writing trigger I noticed how close it is to Tigger, and then I thought about how being triggered is like being bounced.

I am enjoying this analogy immensely.

Being bounced is almost always unexpected and unwanted. It knocks you flat on your back. And then there's a Tigger on top of you. The Tigger is kind of child-like, and it won't go away.

Tigger: I “recoggonize” you. You’re the one that’s stuffed with fluff.
Winnie the Pooh: Yeah. And you’re sitting on it.
Tigger: Yeah. And it’s comfy, too!
~ (Tigger), A. A. Milne, Winnie The Pooh

Once you are bounced and would like your Tigger to go away, I suggest feeding it extract of malt.

There are a lot of ways in which being triggered is not at all  like being bounced, but I am deciding that when something is causing me anxiety, and it is not really that thing's fault, I will treat it as if I've just been bounced. There's a Tigger in the room and I need to feed it extract of malt or go climb a tree before I can go back to dealing with the thing.

Belief

"Do you believe in evolution?"

No.

But let me rephrase the question:

"Do you believe that the theory of evolution is currently the best way to explain the data?"

Why, yes I do. Thanks for asking!

You can believe in a whole lot of things. You can believe in yourself, in the inherent goodness of humanity, in God, in your friends, in ghosts. If you live in Baltimore, you can just Believe. But it makes no sense to believe IN a scientific theory, or to assume that others do so. Sometimes people may say they believe in evolution and mean they believe the theory fits the data, but sometimes people are sloppy with their language and should know better. It makes no more sense to believe in evolution than it does to believe in electromagnetism.

It may seem like I'm making a minor point here - okay yes, I am, it's what I do - but what I'm getting at is that failing to make this distinction is the cause of a lot of the perceived conflict between science and religion. Believing in something is like having faith, and no one can take that away from you. But evolutionary biologists don't have faith that the theory of evolution is correct - they have data. The key thing about this kind of "science belief" is that new data can prove the theory wrong, thus changing beliefs about how well the theory works. The "faith beliefs" can change too, i.e. I can believe in the goodness of humanity but change my mind when faced with traumatic events; however, "the goodness of humanity" is not a testable theory. It would be odd to believe in a chair, but it is reasonable to believe that a chair exists (perhaps because you are sitting on it). This is what I mean by science belief: it connects a theory to data in an objective way.

A better way to phrase the distinction might be justified vs. unjustified belief. Scientific beliefs are (mostly) justified by data, i.e. they are empirical. Justification can also be rational, i.e. without recourse to data but appealing to logic. Unjustified beliefs can be based on intuition, or on preference (believing something because you want it to be true); or, like religious belief, they could be based on profound personal experiences. They are both legitimate types of belief and we all have them.

Now, you might think that justified beliefs are more strongly held and unjustified beliefs are easier to change. To the contrary, justified beliefs are far more adaptable - the data may change, your reasoning may be shown to be false - and I think most of the time we make no distinction between these types of belief in our own heads. There are just things we know, and we do not constantly ask ourselves how we know them. But the distinction matters. Unjustified beliefs are much harder to change.

To me, believing in something is like having faith in something without empirical or rational justification. And this is exactly why I hate the question, "Do you believe in evolution?"  It is like asking, "Do you believe in gravity?" I'm not floating into space, so, yes? But Newtonian gravity is wrong on cosmological scales, so no? Or did you mean relativistic gravity? What are you talking about?! It is a meaningless question.

Part of the deal of abandoning certainty is a commitment to questioning your beliefs. This gets tedious. Humans are not designed to do this. But, it is irrational to believe, contrary to the data, that humans are rational beings. Being uncertain is uncomfortable, thus abandoning certainty means valuing the truth above personal comfort. Many people place utmost value in concepts like goodness or justice, or in increasing well-being for themselves and others. But valuing truth means asking, "What is good? What is well-being?" and being okay with not knowing the answer. Valuing truth means avoiding untruths most of all. And now that I've slipped from epistemology to morality and totally derailed myself, here's an apt quote from Dune:

My father once told me that respect for the truth comes close to being the basis for all morality. "Something cannot emerge from nothing," he said. This is profound thinking if you understand how unstable "the truth" can be.

- Frank Herbert, Dune

I've recently discovered (in the past months or year) that I seem to place a high value in the truth, and I find myself thinking, when I disagree with something on the internet (like ALL THE TIME), "Well, they just don't value truth as much as I do." (Wow, that sounds pretty arrogant after writing it out loud... no one thinks to themselves, "I don't care what is true! La la la la!" Probably. But that's not what I mean...) Perhaps not valuing truth as much means they are less wary of the instability of "truth" or more trusting of sources of information. But whenever someone posts something and comments, "This is unbelievable!!!!!!" I always want to respond, "Then maybe you shouldn't believe it? And also maybe calm down with the exclamation marks a bit?"

Another way people may not "value truth as much" is when there's a disagreement; they may get defensive or take it personally because not having any perceived conflict is more important than hashing out the issues; or, having their opinions heard is more important than finding out whether these opinions conform to reality. I'm not making judgments here; these values are all valid. Part of the difference in what people value may be temperament. Personally, not only am I a professional scientist, but in my free time I read about psychology, epistemology, neuroscience, and other things that address why we believe what we believe and how we know what we know. So, I value truth highly, and others may not, and that's okay.

Getting back to the justified vs. unjustified types of belief... I think it's fair to say that justified belief is more trustworthy. Justification should be found for unjustified beliefs whenever possible, and basic assumptions, facts, and motivations that underlie belief checked often. But, though I value truth, I recognize that some belief can never be justified; further, these unjustified beliefs address some of the most profound and beautiful aspects of human existence.

This distinction is often discussed in terms of the conflict between science and religion. For example, no empirical data can address the question of God's existence, and though there may be reasoned arguments, surely very few people believe in God because they were convinced by the Kalam Cosmological Argument; it is rather something they know, because they have faith. Acting as if data or logic has anything to do with spirituality is a good way for atheists to completely miss the point and convince no one (as if convincing were a worthwhile endeavor, which it is not).

On the other hand, ignoring the overwhelming justification of a scientific theory because it conflicts with unjustified religious belief is a good way to bring the progress of society to a screeching halt. The error lies in failing to recognize those aspects which are justifiable - those which come into contact with data - and failing to separate them from questions of value, rightness, love, spirituality, etc.

Stephen Jay Gould has famously referred to science and religion as "non-overlapping magisteria," such that science deals with questions of fact and religion with morality and meaning. I may have agreed at one time, but now it is obvious to me that of course they overlap! Most religions have in their dogma explicit questions of fact; science, being a human endeavor, is not immune from questions of morality and meaning, and of course religion does not have a monopoly on morality and meaning in the first place. It seems "science" and "religion" are not the correct terms, and I don't know what the correct terms are, which may be why this blog post has been in draft form for years. I guess I will have to live with the uncertainty.

It is one of the triumphs of the human that he can know a thing and still not believe it.

- John Steinbeck, East of Eden

Flatland

What is the point of this blog post? Besides the obvious pun, which will become clear to you in a moment, I'm not really sure what the point of posting this quotation is, except that I found it interesting and compelling. I guess I will just write and we'll find the point together.

Near the end of Flatland, by E. A. Abbott, the Sphere is showing the Square (who has already witnessed visions of Lineland and Spaceland) the being, and entirety, of Pointland:

"Behold yon miserable creature. The Point is a Being like ourselves, but confined to the non-dimensional Gulf. He is himself his own World, his own Universe; of any other than himself he can form no conception; he knows not Length, nor Breadth, nor Height, for he has had no experience of them; he has no cognizance even of the number Two; nor has he a thought of Plurality; for he is himself his One and All, being really Nothing. Yet mark his perfect self-contentment, and hence learn this lesson, that to be self-contented is to be vile and ignorant, and that to aspire is better than to be blindly and impotently happy. Now listen."

(Italics mine.) The first set of italics I found profound in a Zen kind of way. In Pointland, one, everything, and nothing are all the same. Let's just sit with that for a moment.

...

...

...

Got it? Everything is nothing, and nothing is everything.

Now to the mathematics... does a point even exist? How can an infinitesimally small thing, which has no extent in either of our three spatial dimensions, be said to exist? How can it be extant with no extent, as it were? We can write down a lot of things mathematically, like infinity, for example, that are useful to solve problems about the real universe but don't actually exist themselves. How can infinity carry any ontological weight? There are an infinite number of numbers between any two numbers, sure, but numbers are abstractions; they are not real things in the real world, but instead they are properties of things in the world. Similarly, a point is a mathematical abstraction - a way to specify this number exactly - but a thing can't be a point, can it? We would have to know its location to infinite precision (and as I've said, it would have zero extent).

Points are difficult for physics. Zeros and infinities make black holes, which tear apart the very fabric of space and time. Singularities (like black holes) are a sign that something is wrong with our theories or that they are incomplete. The embarrassment of naked black holes is covered up with event horizons, which hide the awkward theoretical rip in space-time. But it is interesting to me, in a very Zen way, how zero and infinity are reciprocals of each other - divide by zero to get infinity, and divide by infinity to get zero. They are inverses, so in some way they're the same - zero is infinity, just viewed upside-down. Everything is nothing.


The second set of italics above, "to aspire is better than to be blindly and impotently happy," is interesting for a completely different reason. Here is the Point making a very profound (to me) point about existence, and yet the higher-dimensional beings call him vile and ignorant. His happiness is a reflection of his ignorance of the higher dimensions (or really any dimensions at all), and this is obviously to be scorned. In some ways I sympathize; the Point is certain that he knows all there is to know, by virtue of being his entire Universe, so while we can't exactly blame him, he is completely and utterly wrong. He hears the Square speak, and thinks it his own thoughts. Being wrong is uncomfortable, but I value the attempt at being right (the aspiration for knowledge, not knowledge itself) more than being ignorant, certain, and blissful.

And yet:

"Infinite beatitude of existence! It is; and there is none else beside It. It fills all Space," continued the little soliloquizing Creature, "and what It fills, It is. What It thinks, that It utters; and what It utters, that It hears; and It itself is Thinker, Utterer, Hearer, Thought, Word, Audition; it is the One, and yet the All in All. Ah, the happiness ah, the happiness of Being!"

 Ah indeed, the happiness of Being. What an intriguing and enticing ignorance!
 

Eat, Drink, and Be Meriadoc

In the beginning there was Eru, the One, and he created the Ainur, and they made the world with their song. And then, some considerable time later, during the Fourth Age, someone posted this link on Facebook. And I knew that I had just been witness to The Greatest Idea Ever: a Lord of the Rings movie marathon hobbit feast. I knew I had all three extended editions of LOTR at Mom's, and that I would soon be there myself; and I knew that we would be watching the 2nd Hobbit film, and that I would again try to read The Hobbit to my nephew - which, given how little I see him and how quickly he falls asleep, is going to take FOREVER. Therefore I emailed my family and said "Make It So." And it was.

I'm sure my loyal readers need no assurance of my Tolkien Geek Cred. As the great link says, food is very important in Tolkien's world, a fact of which I'm well aware. Obviously food is important to the Hobbits, but as a theme it appears in very many places throughout both Bilbo's and Frodo's adventures. Whenever there is a respite from the toils of the road, there is a description of plain and simple food that makes "a loaf with honey and cream" sound like the most delicious thing ever. And when Frodo and Sam make it to Ithilien and Sam finally gets to use his pots and cook a brace of conies, and in the movie they never get a chance to eat it!, I just weep, knowing how starving they are and will be.

Sure, Mordor is terrible and the ring is a heavy burden, but having no food to get you there? How can a hobbit hope to go on?

Here follows an account of The Great Feast of 2014, in which we were too full and tired to even bother with the last course and skipped straight to dessert. We accompanied the food with (if I remember correctly) a sampler of New Belgium ales, red wine, and sherry. We couldn't find any decent mead, but at least we tried.

First Breakfast - 8am

Blackberry tarts from Bree. As the recipe says,

There was hot soup, cold meats, a blackberry tart, new loaves, slabs of butter and half a ripe cheese: good plain food, as good as the Shire could show.

Though I probably didn't put enough sugar in these, and the blackberries never quite liquified like I thought they would, the tarts were perfect and I want one now.

Second Breakfast - 9am, start FOTR

 

Fried eggs, tomatoes, crispy bacon, and ham. There is no recipe for this because who needs a recipe for this? I know how to fry an egg. Also, I'm assuming you all know what LOTR, FOTR, TTT, and ROTK mean because I expect a minimum of intelligence from my readers.

Elevenses - 11am

Elven Lembas Bread. This was the hit of the day. My nephew literally could not stop talking about it, and not being able to say "lembas" did not stop him.

Luncheon - 1pm, start TTT

Mushroom Soup from the Inn at Bree. Barliman really knows his cooking and apparently has access to a blender or food processor.

Afternoon Tea - 3pm

Lavender & Lemon Muffins, served with Portsmouth tea. The lemon extract we found in Mom's cupboard was probably less than 20 years old and totally okay to use.

Dinner - 5pm, start ROTK

 

Roast Mutton for the Trolls, with Shire pudding. (Get it? Yorkshire pudding??) OMG delicious. I'd never made yorkshire pudding before, and I decided it was like pancakes cooked in meat drippings. Lovely.

 

Supper - 7pm 

 

Daddy Twofoot's Eggplant Parm. There are no pictures because we never got around to this, plus we were at least an hour behind schedule. And since the 7th meal is technically outside the cannon, being part of the movie and not part of the books, we didn't feel obligated to follow our delicious lamb with some cheesy vegetables. Instead we went on to....

Dessert

We made ten cup ranger cookies, mostly because I really liked the description, "for Rangers in the field who only have one measuring cup with them." At this point we were done with pictures, so instead here's my niece, who had fun getting in our faces and messing with our food.

Quiet

I got the book Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking for Christmas, and honestly I wasn't expecting that much. I had seen her TED talk and thought it was great, but I couldn't imagine how she would fill a whole book. Introverts are awesome, and everyone needs to calm down and stop talking so much - got it. What else is there to say?

As you may have guessed from the fact that I am blogging about it at all, it turns out it had some pretty interesting and unexpected things to say! I highly recommend the book to anyone who is an introvert, or an extrovert who knows introverts, or a parent of a quiet child, or a human being.

One of the more interesting things I learned was about the neuroscience behind temperament, and relatedly, why oral exams are a horrible way to judge knowledge and intelligence. If I could have told my examiners, "Look, I am a 'high-reactive' type of person, which means my amygdala goes into high gear in stimulating situations like being around people and trying new things, so in these situations my neocortex is spending considerable effort to soothe my amygdala, thus interfering with my ability to speak on the fly and 'think on my feet', so kindly bugger off, and anyway what does thinking on your feet have to do with being a good scientist, aren't good results obtained with careful diligence and error-catching?!".... then perhaps I could have saved myself a few years of stress and anxiety. But somehow I don't think it would have gone over too well. Luckily, giving scientific talks has none of the stress-inducing JUDGMENT of exams, and I usually eat some dark chocolate right before speaking. (To stimulate the release of dopamine, of course.)

I interpreted this part of the book as an explanation for why mantras work. Specifically, this quote:

In fact, a recent fMRI study shows that when people use self-talk to reassess upsetting situations, activity in their prefrontal cortex increases in an amount correlated with a decrease of activity in their amygdala. (p. 118)

Fear is a pretty basic emotion governed by the primitive part of the brain, but we can learn to get over it by activating our powerful front brain. However, the fear response of the amygdala never goes away completely, so when the cortex is otherwise occupied, such as in stressful situations, we may find that we do not have our shit together as much as we thought we did. Shit.

"Quiet" covers the basics of introversion/extroversion for people who spend too much time at parties to learn about this fundamental aspect of human personality. (JUST KIDDING extraverts, I love you! but seriously pick up a book sometime okay?) It dispels myths about introverts, such as they are always shy and depressed - though this awesome cartoon might be the best explanation of introversion. "Quiet" also talks about related aspects of temperament like sensitivity (though 30% of sensitive types are extraverts if I remember correctly), which describes people who are "keen observers" who "have difficulty when being observed or judged", "tend to be philosophical" and "dislike small talk", and who "feel exceptionally strong emotions" and "process information about their environments unusually deeply." (p. 136) Does that sound like someone you know?

There are a bunch of other insights that could be drawn from the book, from politics to the media to religion to business to education to relationships.... basically, anything that involves people, because people are either introverts or extraverts or both. So that pretty much covers everything.

But you don't have to take my word for it! Go read it yourself! If you want to. Or you can just take my word for it. It really doesn't matter either way. Do whatever you want! Just calm down.

Nostalgia

At some point in my young adult life, I vaguely remembered a story that was a favorite of mine as a kid and couldn't for the life of me remember what it was. I knew it contained a lion at the end, who perhaps lived in a castle. I suspected it was in a book at Grandma's house, but she had given those away long ago.

I desperately wanted to find this story again, but why? Sure, a lion living in a castle sounds pretty cool, but it wasn't the coolness of the story I cared about. There might not even be any castle! (I was pretty sure about the lion.) It was something about the almost but not quite remembering - the hope that finding this story would unlock a wave of nostalgia that I was robbed of, because I couldn't be nostalgic for something I couldn't even remember.

Many years later, after my nephew was born, I had an excuse to buy children's books. (One copy for myself, one for him!) I found an illustrated copy of the Winnie-the-Pooh books and HAD to buy the DVD of the old cartoons - I had to clarify my vague memories of them getting lost in the woods, and of Tigger getting stuck in the tree. When I would visit and everyone else was tired of watching Winnie-the-Pooh, I would make them put it on, because obviously the DVD was a gift to myself.

When these relics of childhood are found again, they become more than they are. They are valued for their association with happy memories and being a kid, not for themselves. Let's face it, being a kid is pretty awesome! There's something about the initial remembering - the theme song of old cartoons, an image from a story book - that just makes us happy, no matter how stupid the book or bad the cartoon. If we hadn't watched Legend all the time as kids I seriously doubt that I would love it so much now. But now, I can say with certainty that it is objectively one of the best movies of all time. (Scientific fact.)

Eventually, buying Christmas presents for my nephew led me to stumble across Richard Scarry's Best Storybook Ever containing, you guessed it, my long lost favorite story: "Is This the House of Mistress Mouse?" (Spoiler: the lion's castle house was not her house!) On top of that, there were so many other stories and images that I didn't even know that I forgot! I try to read them to my nephew even if he thinks they're boring. But I suppose he is creating his own set of things to forget, to one day half-remember. I hope there's lots.

When I was reminded of Winnie-the-Pooh today, I sort of thought about writing a blog post about the philosophy in the books, but I ended up writing something else (and it turns out someone else has written that already...) Instead I will end with one of many deep and profound Pooh quotes:

“I do remember, and then when I try to remember, I forget.”

Chavs

After reading "Chavs: The Demonization of the Working Class" by Owen Jones, I felt like to do it justice would require a researched college-style essay instead of a blog post. Not gonna happen! So go read it! It was a great book, and at the same time I learned a little bit about UK politics and history.

But even though I won't write an essay, I've made some notes about the pages I marked while reading. Also, most of the social commentary applies in some way to the dialogue going on in America around class, but of course there are important differences... someone should write a book about that. (Or a college-style essay!)

Racism bad, Sexism bad, Classism funny!
"Chav" is a derogatory term in the UK for working-class people. The closest thing I can relate it to in US terms is "white trash" - though of course one of the things that struck me while reading this book is that there is no derogatory term for poor people in the US that isn't also about race. (So we have that going for us?) The chav stereotype is of an uneducated young street thug wearing "Burberry" or other bling; laziness, drunkenness, violence, teenage pregnancies, racism, etc. are all traits associated with chavs. Literally the term comes from the Romany word for child, 'chavi', though people often associate the term with acronyms like 'Council Housed And Violent'. Another US analogy is needed here: council housing can be considered a nicer, British version of the projects... plus without the guns.

Jones opens the book with an anecdote: he was at a dinner party with educated, middle-class, liberal friends, and yet someone cracked a joke about chavs and everyone laughed. Why has it become okay to make fun of poor people? Why are there TV shows in the UK devoted to this very thing? I think this all hinges on the popular notion that class is a choice, or a result of your choices, as opposed to things like your race or your gender, which you are born with. This is a ridiculous and upside-down idea in the face of all the data about upward mobility (i.e. the lack thereof). But if being poor is your own fault, then it's okay to make fun of you for it, and not feel guilty. Game on!

There are probably other psychological things going on though that explain why people would rather believe people are poor entirely because of their choices than that education, race, gender, parental income, the structure of society, etc. have a huge impact on your life. Part of the story is perhaps that believing that the disadvantaged deserve what they get makes it easier for the wealthy to think they are entirely responsible for their own wealth ("I BUILT IT!!!!"), rather than accepting that they were dealt a good hand and used it well.

What is the working class?
"Interestingly, more people in Britain call themselves working class now than did in 1950," despite Tony Blair's insistence that "we're all middle class now." Stock-brokers "ask with faux puzzlement: 'I work, don't I? So why aren't I working class?'" A childhood friend which Jones considered indisputably working class "felt that being working class meant being poor, while being middle class meant being educated." (p. 141)

I think the last quote is why I marked this page. Also, after reading the entire book, I'm still not entirely certain what is meant by working-class. Maybe it just sounds better than "lower-class" (after all, we have "middle" and "upper").

The lack of upward class mobility scapegoated by the lack of aspiration
A common criticism of the working-class (I might just start calling it "victim-blaming") is that they have no aspiration - that they could make their lives better but they just don't care enough to try. Jones interviews Liam, who came from a working-class background: "I literally didn't know what university was, aged sixteen. University, to be honest, was kind of where posh people go!... It's just not what we do, it's just not on the radar... You can only ever really aspire to something if you know it and understand it." (p. 174-175)

I thought the last bit was incredibly profound. How can we expect poor people to work really hard (and spend a lot of money that they don't have... at least that's how it works in America) to get a University education when they have no frame of reference for such an aspiration? Especially now when a college degree is often a ticket to live with your parents in your early 20s rather than a ticket to a good job? In poor communities in the US, the most that kids have to aspire to is to work at McDonald's and not get shot. These are the kinds of things they can point to as attainable goals. These are the jobs they are trained for with what our education system is providing them.

The "get a job" argument, i.e. "try harder," i.e. "it's your fault you're poor"
Perhaps this is just a variant of the above "victim-blaming" excuse, both of which stem from the assumption that people have complete and total control over their own lives no matter what... But as it turns out, in the UK "the majority of people living in poverty actually have a job." New Labour (close enough to Democrats) attempted to tackle this problem, but they did it by "allowing the market to run amok," according to Jones. A Labour MP (Congressperson) describes this as introducing tax credits and redistributing wealth by forcing people into the lowest paid jobs: "In that way, you become the guilty person if you can't afford to dig yourself out of poverty. There's a Victorian, patronizing attitude towards working people." All the while, the minimum wage has been allowed to become less and less meaningful. (p. 201-202)

If there were one word to describe the 'chav' stereotype, patronizing would be it.

Chavs are all racist idiots who blame immigrants for their problems
If Children of Men taught me anything, it's that the British hate immigrants. The British National Party (one of those minor Nth parties that other democracies have) represents those sentiments. Hackney (a town? a part of London? something like that...) got a lot of votes in the 70s for the National party, but more recently they got virtually none, which a former London mayor thinks is because "you tend to get a problem of racism in an area undergoing transition." Very insightful! Jones goes on: "Hackney is one of the most mixed areas in the country, and as a result the far right has died out there." (The U.S. analogy is major cities, which are the most diverse and the most Democratic.) "But it [far right/BNP] flourishes in areas... where mass immigration is a new phenomenon... or, conversely, where there is very little immigration but a tremendous fear of it." Additionally "liberal multiculturalism has understood inequality purely through the prism of race, disregarding that of class." This is also what we often do in the U.S. but with good reason; however, in the UK, the white majority is a real 90% majority (which I learned from this book). (p. 224-225)

If you are middle-class and don't exactly have swimming pools filled with gold, you are probably worried about sending your kids to college and saving for retirement. It may seem unfair that some people are getting help from the government. You might have some reasonable things to say about that. BUT, it may seem even more unfair if those people getting help don't look like you. (I'm saying this simply as a statement of human nature and not a moral judgment.) "Why do they get handouts just because they are minorities?" is unfortunately something that real people say. It doesn't help that "affirmative action" policies in the UK are called "positive discrimination" (!!), but I will have to leave that discussion to future work.

A new sense of aspiration
"The new aspiration must be about improving people's communities and bettering the conditions of the working class as a whole, rather than simply lifting able individuals up the ladder." (p. 258)

Word.

Things

I had envisioned writing this months ago. I would arrive in England, unpack my boxes, re-discover what books I had decided to ship across an ocean, and write about what they mean. These are the books I could not live without (or could not fit into my storage boxes) - that meant so much to me I would pay serious money and cause myself serious mental anxiety to have with me.

It turns out they caused me even more mental anxiety when that box simply did not arrive in England! I had my few cosmology textbooks and a few books I put in my luggage, but not the bulk of my favorite books and DVDs. Apparently I did not need them enough to get over my calling-businesses-on-the-phone anxiety (yes, I have anxiety issues, and that makes me anxious...) so I just hoped they would show up and planned to buy them all again until miraculously, a few days before Christmas, they were returned to my mom's house. (Custom's thought I owed duty fees but never bothered to send me a bill. Asshats.)

All of this strongly reinforces what I already knew, and what made moving out of a house I lived in for 6 years so hard, which is that I love my things. A book is not just a book but the experience I had reading it, over and over for my favorite books. I like to look at my things and have special places to put them. Even in the game Skyrim, I love how I can display my books on a bookshelf, armor on a mannequin, and special weapons I no longer use on a weapon rack. Sometimes I try to arrange the books by theme, because what matters is not that I have a bunch of things, but that I have a place for the things I care about, even when they are fantasy things in a fantasy world.

So what about my real books? (And DVDs while I'm at it.) It will surprise no one that I have very special copies of The Lord of the Rings trilogy, The Hobbit, The Silmarillion, and even The Children of Hurin, two of which I brought in my luggage and the other two I packed, leaving the rest of my Tolkien books (you bet there are lots!) to storage. I'm actually glad The Hobbit was in the lost box because that means it is here now and I am reading it to my nephew. The DVDs were mostly movies that I don't have pirated copies of, but especially all 3 LOTR extended edition DVDs. Other fantasy books I brought or packed are the His Dark Materials trilogy by Phillip Pullman and all 7 Harry Potter books, plus The Tales of Beedle the Bard. I probably debated whether to pack Dune (all 6) or HP, deciding that HP belonged in England. To round out the fantasy genre I also packed Legend. (I will accept no criticism. It is awesome.)

Next I packed The Wisdom of Insecurity by Alan Watts, a book on Guided Meditations by Stephen Levine, and The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran, because, you know, deep thoughts and stuff. Then there's an awesome old book of the collected writings of John Steinbeck which contains my favorite, East of Eden. Deep thoughts in that one too. DVDs in this theme include I Heart Huckabees and a Joseph Campbell compilation, Sukhavati (I guess the Power of Myth was too big for the box). I will have to either find place in my luggage or download these in preparation for my next existential crises. I also packed The Matrix set of DVDs, which arguably goes here in the Deep Thoughts section, but that will take another blog post of explaining (and room in my luggage). I miss having my things!

The rest is a less meaningful hodgepodge of useful (Julia Child's French cookbook, Chocolate Desserts, French for Reading, Spanish phrase book, and a Guide to Madrid), not yet read (The World of Dreams (a collection of essays), volume one of Sandman by Neil Gaiman, and The House of Seven Gables), and awesome (Kung Fu Panda 2, Avatar: The Last Airbender volume 1, and Planet Earth). Maybe it's not as interesting as I thought it would be to learn that I like fantasy and metaphysics (and cartoons featuring martial arts). Sorry for boring you! But I do believe that the things people value tell a story about who they are.

I will have to figure out what I can fit on the trip back. Obviously I don't need these things. I can live without them. But I want my flat in England to be my home, "where the rooms are a collection of our lives," and for that I need my things.

Elvish is Easy

The hardest part of writing something in Elvish is figuring out what to say.

Once you've done that, everything else just follows naturally. First, you have to see if there is a reasonable translation. (Remember, it's Elvish, there are no words for spaceship.) Obviously Sindarin is the specific language to go with, as it is the primary language of the elves in Middle-Earth (most of the high elves having gone over the sea into the West) - but if you are going to be particularly poetical or if you want to translate a wizard's spell, Quenya might be worth the effort. Either way, simply look up your words in an online dictionary (Sindarin or Quenya (pdf)) and write them down for later. This is your starting point, but if you simply string these words together you would sound like a crass dwarf. Elvish is anything but crass.

The next step is to consult this guidebook to figure out how to pluralize your nouns, conjugate your verbs, and especially how each word might be changed based on what other word is before or after, known as lenition or soft mutation. This is all really quite simple. If you want to say "friends", change the "o" in mellon to "y" and there you have it: mellyn nin, "my friends". You don't have to change the "e" to "i" because it occurs in the first syllable. If you want to say something about Ents, both "o"'s in Onod get mutated, the first to "e" and the second to "y" to get Enyd (but sometimes the first "o" is not mutated, so you will just have to know when it is right to do it). However, if you are talking about the Ents as a people, instead of just two or more Ents, you don't pluralize any vowels but instead add -rim to get Onodrim. Similarly Amon for "hill" gets changed to Emyn for "hills" as in the Emyn Muil. You get the point. Quite easy.

Now if you want to say "my friends" in the middle of the sentence instead of the beginning - such as in the King's Letter: e aníra ennas suilannad mhellyn în, "he wishes there to greet his friends" - you must add a soft mutation to change the "m" to "mh" (or usually "v", of which "mh" is a nasal variant). Most other consonants are lenited when preceded by a vowel, such as the article i meaning "the": "the friend" becomes i vellon.* Also, p, t, and c become b, d, and g while b and d become v and dh (which is voiced th), and g drops altogether as in Galadriel's opening words in the FOTR movie: a han noston ned 'wilith, "and I can smell it in the air", where the word for "air" is gwilith. This is all very straightforward. Now your set of Sindarin words may bear only a vague resemblance to the initial Sindarin words you had from the dictionary. But you probably shouldn't have tried to mutate your nouns before dealing with the verbs.

* Of course "the friends" becomes i mellyn since the plural article in triggers the nasal mutation which changes in to i before an "m", since of course "m" is already nasal, whereas in + gelaidh becomes i ngelaidh ("the trees"). Obviously.

First figure out what kind of verb you have, whether it is a derived verb (called A-stem because they end in "a"), or the more complex basic verb (I-stem because their present tense ends in "i" though they usually have no suffix), and of course notice whether your A-stem verb has a mixed conjugation or whether it is irregular. As you can see, it should be quite obvious which type of verb you have. Then simply follow the rules and conjugate to your heart's content, paying attention to the pronoun you require. So for example, the present tense of nosta- above is identical to the word itself: nosta, "smell", but to say "I smell" you add the ending -n, which changes the "a" to "o": han noston, "I smell it". This should all go without saying.

I will of course assume that you have all read the pronunciation guide in the back of The Silmarillion and have not been butchering the language by saying mae govannen as "may" instead of the correct "mai". That means it will be quite easy to take your Sindarin sentence and transliterate to one of the runic alphabets, such as the blocky Cirth preferred for stone work, and by the dwarves, or the more elegant Tengwar such as appears on the One Ring. The tengwar are created by combining telcor (stems) and lúvar (bows) based on where the sound is spoken in the mouth and whether it is voiced or voiceless (see figure). Then of course there are additional letters, which can be written both normally or upside-down, but that should pose no difficulty.

Double letters (such as "nn" in govannen) aren't written twice but are instead denoted by adding a special symbol under the letter, and nasalized letters have a symbol over the top. The vowel sounds also have their symbols placed on top (or under) the consonant preceding (Quenya) or following (Sindarin) the vowel. When there is no available consonant carrier, a special short or long carrier is used, based on whether the vowel sound should be short or long. This is all so logical that you have probably derived it from first principles already, but I mention it here for clarity.

Now all you need to do is download some true type fonts for tengwar, of which there are many. If you are going to put your Elvish phrase into your Ph.D. thesis, for example, it will also help to have a LaTeX package that will place your choice of font neatly into your pdf, and all you have to do is type out the Quenya names for all of the letters and symbols that go into your words.

There you have it. Was that so hard?

Immensity

Merry looked out in wonder upon this strange country, of which he had heard many tales upon their long road. It was a skyless world, in which his eye, through dim gulfs of shadowy air, saw only ever-mounting slopes, great walls of stone behind great walls, and frowning precipices wreathed with mist. He sat for a moment half dreaming, listening to the noise of the water, the whisper of dark trees, the crack of stone, and the vast waiting silence that brooded behind all sound. He loved mountains, or he had loved the thought of them marching on the edge of stories brought from far away; but now he was borne down by the insupportable weight of Middle-earth. He longed to shut out the immensity in a quiet room by a fire.

- J.R.R. Tolkien, "The Return of the King," p. 64

This is why I will always be reading and re-reading Tolkien. I may put LOTR away for a few months or more, but when I'm ready, I will find my bookmark and read something beautiful. I must have read this paragraph 10 times before, but this time it was new and powerful. I want to go to a mountain and listen to the whisper of dark trees! I want to listen to the vast waiting silence that broods behind all sound! And especially, I want to return from the mountains to shut out the immensity in a quiet room by a fire.

Experiences of awe such as Tolkien describes can be overwhelming; one can lose oneself in the vastness. At first this feeling can be exciting: sit on a mountain, or gaze at the stars, and you become small in relation to your experience, but at the same time you become part of the immensity itself. "Formless! Boundless!" (to roughly quote the Tao Te Ching...) You lose you to become the experience. This can be thrilling, but it can also be frightening. After all, we are used to thinking of ourselves as ourselves and not the entire universe. When Middle-earth gets too huge we look for a safe place to be ourselves again.

It takes courage to lose yourself in immensity. The deep ocean, the high mountain, the crowded city center, the vast waiting silence that broods behind all sound... Most of us don't have the time (or the will) to experience vast strangeness, like Merry on an epic journey he could not anticipate, finding himself bereft of his friends. We don't often willingly put ourselves into a situation where nothing is familiar, without guarantee of security or a safe way home again. Those who do are praised as heroes. But although we may think of a hero as an Aragorn figure with a destiny for greatness, clarity of purpose, strength and kindness and a long stride, most heroes (and most of us) are more like the hobbits, who dream of eggs and bacon and a seat by the fire, and for whom Middle-earth is best experienced through stories brought from far away; but the immensity is there for us all, waiting for us to enter.

Fear

I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.

- The Litany Against Fear, Dune, Frank Herbert

I remember only one time when I genuinely said this to myself. There have been many times when I might have thought “Fear is the mind killer” and then gone about my day, but one time I used the litany against fear as an actual litany. I was in the hospital, recovering from the surreal feeling of waking up after general anesthesia. I just had my third knee surgery in as many years and was about to be a senior in high school. The first two surgeries reconstructed my ACL, and I went back to playing soccer each time because that was a core part of my identity. This was supposed to be an exploratory surgery (screws from the first time prevented an MRI) and the doctor hoped the ligament was merely strained and could be fixed. Not the case.

It came unbidden. I don’t remember who told me the news, but I remember thinking it, repeating the whole thing, which I had read Dune enough times to memorize, over and over. I would not be recovered in time to play soccer my senior year. I would have to have another full reconstructive surgery and months of painful rehab, for nothing, because I certainly wasn’t good enough to play in college. (Side note: I ended up playing rugby and I don’t regret it, even though I did tear my ACL again senior year... haven’t had surgery because just thinking about hospitals and IVs and anesthesia fills me with dread and whatever I can run fine everything’s fine...) There’s probably no way for me to really convey what a blow this was, and I don’t exactly want to try, but the litany helped.

Part of it, I think, is that any kind of litany would help in that situation. A mantra that you repeat gives you something to focus on that is not the turmoil of your emotions or the racing of your thoughts, so you are able to just be while the shock wears off. But of course the mantra can’t be something meaningless – I don’t think “red socks red socks red socks” would be very encouraging in a time of crisis – so the litany helped because it is powerful. Fear is the “mind-killer” that prevents me from thinking rationally. I must “face my fear” instead of running away from the way things are. It will “pass over me and through me” because it is insubstantial, it is only fear; it is not the thing I fear and it is not me. “Only I will remain.” Saying the litany against fear or a similar mantra is a stabilizing force, and as we learned from the Avatar TV series, the first chakra (Earth) deals with survival and is blocked by fear.

This is significant, not just because I love that episode and it is one of the best explanations of the chakras I’ve ever heard, but because the chakras represent a hierarchy. You must open the base chakra before the others because spiritual insight or cosmic truth means nothing when you fear for your very survival. Fear is one of our most tangible and powerful emotions, and that is why it is so easily used to manipulate people. The conservative agenda has been very successful with “they are taking away your freedoms,” while loftier ideas of compassion (the heart chakra) and truth (the sound chakra) have much more difficulty taking hold. How can one have compassion for the other when one is afraid of the other?

I won’t go into politics or the culture of fear because it makes me angry, so I will stick with psychology. (I just mistyped “psychoco.” Freudian slip!) The hardest part of dealing with fear is not knowing what you’re afraid of, or even that you’re afraid. It can be hidden under layers of hate, anger, worry, anxiety, or despair. Of course, there’s no easy answer for that, but we could all use a little more introspection and self-awareness, because the things we are afraid of have power over us. We act or react to avoid them, but our fear of them comes from the inability to clearly see things as they are. That spider is not going to do you any harm; it is merely being a spider. That future disaster does not exist, because the future itself does not exist and neither does the past.

Face your fear. Find a point of stability within yourself. Open your Earth chakra. And if you still want to kill that spider, at least it won't be out of fear. ;-)

Guest Post: Breathless

Luckily for my readers, I am not the only one with deep thoughts. Not only is Steph a doctor of astrophysics and an immaculate karaoke singer, she has decided to single-handedly combat bad science in the guise of a fiction novel. Her book review was recently published in the Reports of the National Center for Science Education and can be found here. Thanks Steph, and keep up the good fight!

Breathless
by Dean Koontz
New York: Bantam, 2009. 352 pages
reviewed by Stephanie LaMassa

The plot of Dean Koontz’s novel Breathless centers on the mysterious appearance of two furry white creatures in the Rockies. The size of young children, they have attributes of dogs, cats, and otters, yet resemble none of these, having hands with opposable thumbs. The two main characters, Grady Adams, a craftsman, and Camilla Rivers, a veterinarian, spend the majority of the novel acquainting themselves with these animals and speculating on their origins. The animals’ eyes are their most enchanting feature, larger in proportion to their head than any known animal’s and colored in various hues of gold.

Seemingly unrelated subplots persist throughout the book and are ultimately tied together in the conclusion. One such subplot focuses on Lamar Woosley, who holds a PhD in both mathematics and physics, specializing in chaos theory. His musings on the nature of scientific inquiry set the tone for the climax of the book, where the target of his criticisms of unfounded theories and the scientists who cling to them is ultimately revealed: evolution.

These new creatures signify the end of the acceptance of evolution and the beginning of a new way of thinking. Where do these creatures originate? From “out of infinity into the finite, from out of time into time” (p 305). Such an alternative to evolution is certainly not a viable scientific one, but as a novelist who often writes about supernatural phenomena, it is neither Koontz’s obligation nor his intention to promote this sudden appearance as a realistic truth. Rather, he is focused on inciting his readers to question the validity of evolution.

Koontz utilizes a two-prong approach to achieve this end: portraying scientists as dogmatic and closed-minded and debunking evolution using specious arguments commonly used by anti-evolutionists. For the first prong, he insists, through his character Woosley, that it’s unscientific ever to regard a scientific fact as settled: a scientist who does so has “ceased to be a scientist, and he’s become an evangelist for one cult or another” (p 300). Indeed, scientists are apt to “become so committed to a theory that they spend entire careers ever more desperately defending it as new discoveries ever more rapidly undermine it” (p 300). By declaring that evolution is such a theory that survives despite the contradicting evidence, he implies that evolution is a “religion” (p 216).

For the second prong, Woosley offers several lines of evidence against evolution, correcting the “misconceptions” Grady and Camilla, representing the non-scientific public, held. Koontz’s message seems to be that non-scientists accept the fallacious arguments supporting a debunked theory since they are  ignorant of the evidence to the contrary. However, these counterarguments are not based on an accurate understanding of evolution or scientific evidence and therefore lend no credence to the claim that evolution has been scientifically refuted. I consider three examples.

Fossil Record. When Grady points out to Woosley that the fossil record supports evolution, he is told that it provides no such evidence. His major points to back up this claim are that Darwin predicted thousands of dead-end species but none has been found, and that no evidence exists for transitional forms in the fossil record. Supposed transitional forms may be unrelated species that have since gone extinct; moreover, dating techniques are not precise enough to date fossils sequentially. The first claim, lack of evolutionary dead-ends, is quite perplexing, for evolutionary biologists have found numerous such fossils, even in the human fossil record. Also, his second claim contradicts the first: if the fossils observed do not represent transitional forms, but rather separate species that have gone extinct, then these would be dead-end fossils. Beyond contradicting the first claim, this second claim also reveals ignorance about the scientific process, since the age of fossils have been accurately determined using independent radiometric dating techniques.

Not Enough Time. Woosley claims that the earth has not existed long enough for evolution to occur. Assuming that each “bit of data” (Koontz’s phrase) in a gene is obtained from mutation, and the fastest this change can occur is the time it takes for the speed of light to transverse a molecule, the amount of time needed to accrue enough changes to evolve from a single-celled organism to a simple one, such as a worm, is much longer than the age of the earth (which he correctly cites as four billion years old). If a worm could not evolve in such a short amount of time, how could anything else, much less a human? (Apparently, the skills of a chaos mathematician are needed to multiply and divide a couple of numbers to refute a biological theory.) This statement demonstrates a lack of understanding about the evolutionary process since not each “bit of data” needs to be acquired through mutation.  Evolution occurs through a number of processes, and scientists have demonstrated that these mechanisms can account for evolutionary change within the history of the earth.

The Eye. Though the argument is never made explicitly, it is suggested throughout the book—from the mesmerizing nature of the new creatures’ eyes, referred to as a “more impressive engineering feat than in the human eye” (p 119), to how the “principal challenge they offer [a geneticist and physiologist] is the impossible nature of their eyes” (p 274), it is not coincidental that these creatures’ eyes are their most stunning attribute or that the background on the book’s front cover is a rendering of this eye. For those well-versed in anti-evolution rhetoric, this is a reference to one of the most often used claims of antievolutionists: the complexity of the (vertebrate) eye cannot be accounted for by evolution. True, the eye is complex, but not irreducibly so. Evolutionary biologists have shown how this system could have evolved naturally, and it almost defies reason that this often refuted anti-evolution claim still persists.

Koontz should take the advice he gives to his readers, namely to look beyond what they accept to discover the truth. In his attempts to discredit evolution, he only reveals his (seemingly willing) ignorance on this topic and becomes an “evangelist” for misinformation. His time would have been better spent to learn what the scientific consensus on this issue is and how such tired arguments have been often refuted in the scientific literature. One can only hope that his readers are not swayed by his specious arguments but are instead encouraged to learn the scientific truth—rather than taking science lessons from a novelist. Fitting with the title, Breathless’s dissemination of false information in the guise of bemoaning the stagnation of scientific inquiry can be best described in the words of Judge Jones from the Kitzmiller v Dover decision: “breathtaking inanity.”

About the author:
Stephanie LaMassa has a PhD in astrophysics and is a post-doctoral scholar at Yale University, studying the co-evolution of supermassive black holes and galaxies.

What is Quality?

Preamble: I wrote this in August 2007, probably shortly after I read Lila, Robert Pirsig’s long-winded sequel to Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. Zen etc. is a great novel with some philosophy and metaphysics interspersed that introduces his notion of Quality, and I recommend reading it, whereas Lila is a metaphysical exploration of these ideas with bits of a novel interspersed and is very boring. Both were thought-provoking enough to make me write this, though I am aware some of it only makes sense if you’ve read both, and some of it only makes sense to me. (Also, I apologize for the cheesy ending.) Anyway, without further ado, enjoy, and comment, especially if you are feeling philosophical! (If not, consider opening some wine.)

Is the lack of meaning over which I’ve been lamenting the same as lack of Quality?

Example which brought about this question: receiving scarves, gloves, and picture frames from Mom’s friend at Christmas and birthdays; a nice gesture, devoid of meaning – for me, worse than nothing?

This is to be the beginning of a discourse on Quality… or something.

Quality: the process by which the experiencer experiences the experience; the relationship between subject and object; the “pre-intellectual awareness” of object by subject; the connection between mind and matter, the perennial false dichotomy, two polar opposites residing in the same circle; an event; Reality.

Sweetly pondering chaos… “It is my path, though not my choice, and I will know the meaning.”

What is meaning?

I have and still do maintain that “the meaning of life” does not exist.  What is the meaning of a flower?  There is no purpose for which humanity exists, that guides or should guide our actions.  There is no striving from inorganic to biological to social to intellectual forms of static quality, no fight between static and Dynamic any more than there is a fight between mind and matter, subject and object, ideas and reality, or whatever terms suit you best.  Some believe ideas are the only way to truth, others experience.  Some like it hot.

I feel like I can interpret Zen etc. in such a way that it makes perfect sense to me, but that my interpretation would mis-represent what Pirsig is trying to say, as evidenced by Lila.  Why do good ideas always turn bad when they attempt to solve everything?  If Quality is composed of static and Dynamic, but static is lower-case and Dynamic always capitalized, and they are always opposed… what’s the point of introducing the static?  Indeed, it makes an easier subject for a Metaphysics, being definable and categorical; but these are the very things that Quality is not, and seemingly neither is Dynamic Quality, and so one wonders how static quality is Quality at all.

If one is better able to repair a motorcycle when they are open to Quality, does it mean one’s actions have intellectual quality?  Does a bolt have more inorganic quality when it is placed in the correct position on the bike, so as to hold it together?  Does the bolt care where it is placed; does it strive toward being assembled, being a part of a larger machine; does this give the bolt meaning?

What is the meaning of a bolt?

Humans are a process that has become aware of itself.  (Switching philosophical novels for a moment…)  But are we really more aware than, say, a squirrel?  It may not be able to tell that a car is coming, but it’s driven by hunger and the need for nuts.  It wants to survive, but sometimes its desire for better nuts somewhere else leads it to ruin.  We may not be able to tell that our foreign policy moves will lead to war, but we are driven by our own need to survive, and historically this has been at the expense of other tribes/nations/belief systems.

Are Meaning and Quality the same thing?

There’s something in me that loves certain objects, like my dragon candle for example, because of their meaning.  Obviously this is a meaning with which I imbue them, and exists for me and me alone.  It is a state of connection between myself and the thing.  In this way it is indeed very similar to Pirsig’s Quality.

However, I can’t believe that it has existence of its own, as a primary “pre-intellectual” reality, on par with the Tao.  Quality, an event, the phenomenon of awareness perhaps – awareness without thought – can be seen as the primary reality, out of which subject and object spring.  Does anything exist which cannot be perceived?  Common sense says of course, but philosophy says we can never know.  So maybe my aversion to giving Meaning this same status is the result of a lingering intuition that primary reality must be unchanging, constant, eternal, universal.  Okay, by “unchanging” I don’t mean it doesn’t change over time, but that in each instant of time it is the same everywhere…. But what is “everywhere”?

Anyway, perhaps I resist saying that meaning is the same as Quality because this raises meaning from a personal phenomenon to a universal primal Meaning of Life; it becomes Capitalized, a caricature of the thing itself, at once everyone’s contradictory ideas of it.  All of a sudden it has some Special Significance.  It is the Answer.

What was the question?

If I stick with my explanations (not definitions) that Quality is an event or process which connects subject to object, then the problem is solved.  Instead of elevating meaning (whose lack I lament) to the status of some Reality un-defined as Quality, I can instead realize that this mysterious quality can be understood to be the same as the meaning which gives objects, events, actions, etc. a fullness and wonder the absence of which is characterized by meaninglessness.

So when I receive a gift of another cheap scarf, it is not the item I miss, but the meaning behind it.  That is to say, I would rather receive something which connects me to this un-defined Quality, where I could say that this item has meaning and this meaning brings me outside of myself.  I would desire a gift that brings to me a feeling that someone cares.

Ah, good, I wanted to talk next about Pirsig’s notion that the inverse of Quality is caring.  It is hard to imagine an inverse of an un-definable pre-intellectual awareness event which creates subjects and objects, but such is the failing of words made plain.  You have to care to realize Quality, and opening to Quality entails caring.  “Caring about what?” is perhaps the wrong question that we are inclined to ask.  Caring is an investing of energy to the task of understanding; it is the desire to understand.  To understand is to achieve Quality, to have your perceptions of reality come from reality itself instead of preconceived notions, emotions, or drama.  To say that a thing lacks Quality is thus to say that it is meaningless, which is to say that understanding is not possible; but if one could understand the thing, Quality would be found.  It is as misguided to think that some things have Quality while others don’t as it is to think that some things are more real than others.  Thus the answer to the question which has been bugging me in some form ever since reading Zen etc. and Lila, that is, “How does one thing have quality while another doesn’t?”, which can be rephrased as “Does x have quality?”, can be answered: “Do you care?”

If you are open to understanding (that is, you care… see previous musings for more), then Quality shines forth.  That is to say, “A sacred place is a place where Eternity shines through Time.” (Joseph Campbell)

In my head, all of these ideas are really describing the same thing; all these words are explicating the same wordless reality, the indefinable, unfathomable, etc. etc.

“Eternity is Now” – Frank Herbert, Dune

“Follow Your Bliss” etc. – Joseph Campbell

“Quality blah Victorians blah blah” – Robert Pirsig

“The Tao that can be Named is not the Eternal Tao” – Lao Tzu

“A deep, abiding, living change” – Krishnamurti

“Bother” – Winnie-the-Pooh

I’m still left with the feeling that this is simply not enough.  It may be true, beautiful, and simple, but is that enough?  What would someone reading these ramblings think?  Obviously, it would depend on their past thoughts and experiences, but what can possibly be communicated here?  I see all these things as coming from a common thread which humanity shares, which human myths express; it resounds in me and fills me to overflowing, like a good piece of music.  But that’s just me.  I’ve had certain thoughts, reflected on certain other people’s thoughts, had certain experiences, possess certain personality traits and proclivities, which combine to form these lofty ideas.  I enjoy thinking in this way and attempting to open myself to wondrous new ideas, and finding their place in a coherent whole.  These things connect with me in a powerful way; but how can such a connection be communicated?  It is exactly the problem of “defining Quality,” of “Naming the Tao,” which Pirsig was drawn to do in Lila while at the same time acknowledging its impossibility.

Of course it’s impossible.  Wholly and completely impossible, but utterly necessary.  Humanity has some choices to make in the near future, and it is no longer a question of isolated groups surviving or not.  We are a global system, and forgetting to care about this amazing truth could spell disaster.  Then again, disaster is a part of life.

And we are life.  All of us.  Every one.  We are nature, and we are civilization.  We have become aware of ourselves, but we do not yet understand ourselves.

In the end, to care is a choice that all of us must make on our own.