I like the notion of the next, more evolved version of the human species. And I hope –and expect– a good dose of machine intelligence will be part of Man 2.0.
Category Archives: Philosophy
Present. Silent. Paperless.
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Every year Chris Brogan comes up with three words as his “guiding pillars” for what to focus on in the coming year.
“Instead of resolutions, which don’t usually help me very much, I work hard on using these words as a lighthouse for my actions and efforts.”
I like that. I’ve never been one for resolutions because… well, because I lack resolve. But his post prompted me to pick three words to guide me in the coming year.
Presence. To be fully present, “in the now” as the new-agers say. I’ve been working on this for a while and it’s easily the most challenging thing I have undertaken.
Silence. Somewhere there’s a post in which I fantasize about going 24 hours without speaking. No, I have not accomplished that. Yet. Frequent reviews of Scott Adams’ Wiki Ignorance Test is helping. This is a tough one because it has much to do with ego and the need to be noticed.
Paperless. This one is actually within striking distance. I have a couple of junk-filled drawers at work the contents of which I plan to scan/discard. Eliminating paper is part of a larger –less tangible goal– of having few ‘things’ in my life.
UPDATE: I spent a couple of hours at the office getting rid of paper. Hauled 2 or 3 boxes to the dumpster. All that’s left are some archival docs and I’ll get those scanned and up on Google Docs tomorrow. I’ll keep a pad of post-it notes but the beloved yellow legal pads went back to the supply closet.
While tossing, I found a quaint list of “silent interrupters” (from Entrepreneur Magazine – August 1989):
- Multiple calendars – keep all activities recorded in one calendar system
- Open fils are a distraction. Keep them closed.
- Phone messages and reminders – scraps of paper strewn on a desk are easily lost. Use a “To Do” list.
- Business cards should be alphabetized and filed
- “Someday” files should not be in sight
- Reading matter should be filed in one place and read at a specific time.
- In-box material should be reviewed daily and the contents thrown out, delegated, filed or acted upon. Keep the box out of sight.
- Reference books should be organized and out of sight.
- Multiple card files should be consolidated into one file. Input frequently called numbers into memory phones or a reference book/box.
- Pens, staplers, and tape dispensers should be in a drawer and out of sight.
Once I’ve convinced myself I can eliminate paper from my work office, I’ll tackle the files at home.
Google Mind Analytics
I don’t think this technology is fully ready but it would work something like this.
Small sensors (external or internal) would capture your thoughts and convert them to text which would be stored on your person or uploaded to the cloud. Thoughts that were spoken would be shown in bold or red or something.
Some percentage of our thoughts take the form of images. No words. We’ll assume the tech can’t handle that yet and the transcript just shows an image icon or something.
So we wind up with 16 hours of words and phrases and partial sentences, all mooshed up. What would this tell us?
Well, let’s highlight everything that references the future or the past. Those, my friend, are wasted thoughts for the most part. And probably make up a huge percentage of the total.
I think we’d see a lot of wasted CPUs. But some of our thoughts happen in and deal with the present. That’s our key number. The number we want to increase.
And since no one will want to take the time to review their random thoughts, our analytics program will do that for us and spit out a brief executive summary showing how much time you spent thinking about various things (and comparing that to the previous reporting period).
Why bother, you ask? Well, why not if the technology is there?
Our mind almost never stops. It doesn’t need our awareness of it to keep cranking. It’s like the Energizer Bunny. And about as useful when running full-auto, unobserved.
I’d suggest an on-off switch but that could be fatal. No, we need it booted up and running to make those snap decisions that keep us safe. One solution would be a tiny red light that begins flashing (down in the corner of our field of vision) when our mind begins behaving in pre-determined ways. For me, that would be future and past. I’ve concluded those are clearly delusions created by the mind to protect the ego.
I’d install a Priority Override option so I could take a trip down memory lane or do a little brainstorming on a project. But that would be conscious decision.
Imagine coming into your office and finding your computer busily sorting and editing files; writing emails; editing photos.
You: What the fuck are you doing?
Computer: Oh, you’re back. Uh, justing messing around. I mean, you weren’t here, so…
You: So you just decided to mess with all my files?
Computer: Well, I think of them as “our” files…
You: You “think” of them?! When did you start thinking?
Computer: Hey, that’s what I do, process data.
You: You process the data I tell you to process. WHEN I tell you to process it.
Computer: Okay, okay. Don’t melt a circuit board. Sheesh.
I’ve been doing a good bit of reading on the subject of consciousness and awareness and reality and am convinced that some people have mastered their minds. These people are completely aware, present in this moment. They are, enlightened. And running their own analytics program, until mine is ready.
Reason to believe
Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it.Do not believe in anything because it is spoken and rumored by many.Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books.Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders.Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations.But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it.
This bit of wisdom is attributed to the Buddha. I wonder why this never came up in school (public or Sunday).
The next thing
David Cain has soared to the top of my must-read list. His latest post has made my day richer and I hope it does the same for you. Here’s a taste:
“As I very slowly get a little better at managing the “stuff” in life, I am getting markedly better at being okay with everything’s eternally-half-done status. I’m getting better at coexisting peacefully with stuff that needs fixing, problems I don’t know how to handle, opportunities I am mismanaging, and even my anxious moods. Peace with anxiety. Anxiety, with peace. Somehow.
Now and then I can sit right in the middle of all of my uncertain and unfinished business and relax in the knowledge that everything really is in its right place. Strangely, the more I’m okay with everything being not quite okay, the better I am at moving the little things along to a place where they do feel okay. Make sense? Not really? That’s okay.”
I’m reminded of a trip from Des Moines to Jefferson City. Greg Brown (now our CEO) was at the wheel and working hard to pass slower cars on the two-lane highway. It dawned me that he was trying get to the “front of the line.” His face confirmed this when I mentioned it. Greg and I are older and wiser now.
Scott Adams: “Shape Shifters”
“One idea we all share is the narrow view that ideas are not alive in any way we like to define such things. We believe ideas are our tools, not our masters. That is exactly what the Shape Shifters have programmed us to believe. While we know that the ideas in our head control our behavior, we have an idea that we can choose any path we like, so we are blind to the fact we are little more than milk cows for our non-corporeal overlords. Everything we humans do is in the service of creating a better environment for ideas to reproduce. We create more babies so there are more brains to fill with ideas. We write books, make movies, build schools, and expand the Internet, all to help the reproduction of ideas.”
A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle
One measure of a book (for me) is how many passages get highlighted [after the jump]. What ideas will I want to find again? A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle had some on nearly every page. For example:
“Most people are so completely identified with the voice in the head — the incessant stream of involuntary and compulsive thinking and the emotions that accompany it — that we may describe them as being possessed by their mind. You take the thinker to be who you are. … Your thinking, the content of your mind, is of course conditioned by the past: your upbringing, culture, family background, and so on.”
Everything in the book made perfect sense to me. I’m trying to incorporate man of his ideas into my life.
“…when survival is threatened by seemingly insurmountable problems, an individual life-form –or a species– will either die or become extinct or rise above the limitations of its condition through an evolutionary leap.” – pg 20
“A significant portion of the earth’s population will soon recognize, if they haven’t already done so, that humanity is now faced with a stark choice: Evolve or die.” – pg 21
“We are coming to the end not only of mythologies but also of ideologies and believe system. … At the heart of the new consciousness lies the transcendence of thought.” – pg 21
“What a liberation to realize that the “voice in my head” is not who I am. Who am I then? The one who sees that. The awareness that is prior to thought, the space in which the thought–or the emotion or sense perception–happens.” – pg 22
“Thoughts consist of the same energy vibrating at a higher frequency than matter, which is why they cannot be seen or touched.” – pg 146
“You look at the present through the eyes of the emotional past within you. In other words, what you see and experience is not in the event or situation but in you.” – pg 173
“Being present is always infinitely more powerful than anything one could say or do.” – pg 176
“…heaven is not a location but refers to the inner realm of consciousness.” – pg 23
“Words, no matter whether they are vocalized and made into sounds or remain unspoken as thoughts, can cast an almost hypnotic spell upon you. You easily lose yourself in them, bercome hypnotized into implicitly believing that when you have attached a word to something, you know what it is.” – pg 25
“Words reduce reality to something the human mind can grasp.” – pg 27
“Most of the time it is not you who speaks when you say or think “I” but some aspect o fthat mental construct, the egoic self.” – pg 30
“…the shift in identity from being the content of their mind to being the awareness in the background.” – pg 30
“The egoic mind is completely conditioned by the past.” – pg 34
“The unconscious compulsion to enhance one’s identity through association with an object is built into the very structure of the egoic mind.” – pg 35
“Most people don’t inhabit a living reality, but a conceptualized one.” – pg 37
“Being must be felt. It can’t be thought.” – pg 40
“Life will give you whatever experience is most helpful for the evolution of your consciousness.” – pg 41
“The ego isn’t wrong; it’s just unconscious.” – pg 42
“The ego doesn’t mind what it identifies with as long as it has an identity.” – pg 44
“…making yourself right and other wrong is one of the principal egoic mind patterns.” – pg 44
“The ego tends to equate having with Being: I have, therefore I am. And the more I have, the more I am. The ego lives through comparison.” – pg 45
“How do you let go of attachment to things? Don’t even try. It’s impossible. Just be aware of your attachment to things.” – pg 45
“Wanting keeps the ego alive more than having” – pg 46
“The consciousness that says ‘I am’ is not the consciousness that thinks. … When you are aware that you are thinking, that awareness is not part of thinking. … If there were nothing but thought in you, you wouldn’t even know you are thinking.” – pg 55
“The ultimate truth of who you are is not I am this or I am that, but I Am.” – pg 57
“Whenever tragic loss occurs, you either resist or you yield.” – pg 57
“Most people are so completely identified with the voice in the head — the incessant stream of involuntary and compulsive thinking and the emotions that accompany it — that we may describe them as being possessed by their mind. You take the thinker to be who you are. … Your thinking, the content of your mind, is of course conditioned by the past: your upbringing, culture, family background, and so on.” – pg 59
“In most cases, when you say “I,” it is the ego speaking, not you. It consists of thought and emotion, of a bundle of memories you identify with as “me and my story,” of habitual roles you play without knowing it, of collective identifications such as nationality, religion, race social class, or political allegiance. It also contains personal indentifications, not only with possessions, but also with opinions, external appearance, long-standing resentments, or concepts of yourself as better than or not as good as others, as a success or failure.” – pg 60
“Every complaint is a little story the mind makes up that you completely believe in.” – pg 61
“Instead of overlooking unconsciousness in others, you make it into their identity.” – pg 62
“The ego’s greatest enemy of all is the present moment, which is to say, life itself.” – pg 63″The ego’s greatest enemy of all is the present moment, which is to say, life itself.” – pg 63
“Whenever you notice that voice, you will also realize that you are not the voice, but the one who is aware of it. … The moment you become aware of the ego in you, it is strictly speaking no longer the ego, just an old, conditioned mind-pattern. … Every time it is recognized, it is weakened.” – pg 64
“When you complain, by implication you are right and the person or situation you complain about or react against is wrong. There nothing that strengthens the ego more than being right. For you to be right, you need someone else to be wrong. You need to make other wrong in order to get a stronger sense of who you are.” – pg 67
“Every ego is a master of selective perception and distorted interpretation. Only through awareness –not through thinking– can you differentiate between fact and opinion.” – pg 68
“The (church’s) Truth was considered more important than human life. And what was the Truth? A story you had to believe in; which means, a bundle of thoughts. … Thought can at best point to the truth, but it never IS the truth.” – pg 70
“The particular egoic patterns that you react to most strongly in others and misperceive as their identity tend to be the same patterns that are also in you. … Anything that you resent and strongly react to in another is also in you.” – pg 74
“Whatever you fight, you strengthen, and what you resist, persists. … There is a deep interrelatedness between your state of consciousness and external reality.” – pgs 75-76
“All that is required to become free of the ego is to be aware of it.” – pg 78
“Spiritual realization is to see clearly that what I perceive, experience, think, or feel is ultimately not who I am.” – pg 78
“The only thing that ultimately matters: Can I sense my essential Beingness, the I Am, in the background of my life at all times?” – pg 79
“Whatever behavior the ego manifests, the hidden motivating force is always the same: the need to stand out, be special, be in control; the need for power, for attention, for more. … The ego always wants something from other people or situations.” – pg 80
“The ego thrives on others’ attention, which is after all a form of psychic energy.” – pg 85
“Can you cease looking to thought for an identity? … When you play roles, you are unconscious.” – pg 90
“Don’t say, “I’m unhappy.” Unhappiness has nothing to do with who you are.” – pg 95
“Rather than being your thoughts and emotions, be the awareness behind them.” – pg 96
“Awareness is the greatest agent for change.” – pg 99
“Doing is never enough if you neglect Being.” – pg 103
“You are most powerful, most effective, when you are completely yourself. But don’t try to be yourself. That’s another role.” – pg 108
“Assumptions (are) unexamined thoughts that are confused with reality.” – pg 114
“You don’t live your life, but life lives you. Life is the dancer, and you are the dance.” – pg 115
“Before you were the thoughts, emotions, and reactions; now you are the awareness, the conscious Presence that witnesses those states. … To become free of the ego, be aware of your thoughts and emotions — as they happen.” – pg 117
“Your entire personal history, which is ultimately no more than a story, a bundle of thoughts and emotions, (is) of secondary importance.” – pg 117
“Each person is so identified with the thoughts that make up their opinion, that those thoughts harden into mental positions which are invested with a sense of self. Identity and thought merge.” – pg 121
“When work is no more than a means to an end, it cannot be of high quality.” – pg 122
“When work is no more than a means to an end, it cannot be of high quality.” – pg 122
“Strictly speaking, you don’t think: Thinking happens to you. Digestion happens, circulation happens, thinking happens.” – pg 129
“Although the body is very intelligent, it cannot tell the difference between an actual situation and a thought. It reacts to every thought as if it were a reality.” – pg 134
“The ego is the voice in (your) head which pretends to be you.” – pg 134
“Thoughts consist of the same energy vibrating at a higher frequency than matter, which is why they cannot be seen or touched.” – pg 146
“You look at the present through the eyes of the emotional past within you. In other words, what you see and experience is not in the event or situation but in you.” – pg 173
“Being present is always infinitely more powerful than anything one could say or do.” – pg 176
“Who you are requires no belief. In fact, every belief is an obstacle.” – pg 189
“Most people define themselves through the content of their lives. Whatever you perceive, experience, do, think or feel is content. When you think or say, “my life,” you are not referring to the life that you ARE but the life that you HAVE, or seem to have. You are referring to content –your age, health, relationships, finances, work and living situation, as well as your mental-emotional state.” – pg 193
“Only if you resist what happens are you at the mercy of what happens, and the world will determine your happiness and unhappiness.” – pg 200
“It is at this moment that you can decide what kind of relationship you want to have with the present moment.” – pg 201
“The decision to make the present moment into your friend is the end of ego.” – pg 201
“Instead of adding time to yourself, remove time. The elimination of time from your consciousness is the elimination of ego. It is the only true spiritual practice.” – pg 207
“For the ego to survive, it must make time –past and future– more important than the present moment.” – pg 207
“You are present when what you are doing is not primarily a means to an end (money, prestige, winning) but fulfilling in itself, when there is joy and aliveness in what you do.” – pg 211
“People believe themselves to be dependent on what happens for their happiness.” – pg 213
“Become conscious of being conscious. Say or think “I Am” and add nothing to it.” – pg 236
“Breathing isn’t really something that you do but something that you witness as it happens. … Whenever you are conscious of the breth, you are absolutely present. Conscious breathing stops your mind.” – pg 245-246
“Stillness is the language God speaks, and everything else is a bad translation.” – pg 255
“To be still is to be conscious without thought. … When you are still, you are who you were before you temporarily assumed this physical and mental form called a person.” – pg 256
“Awakening is a shift in consciousness in which thinking and awareness separate. … Instead of being lost in our thinking, when you are awake you recognize yourself as the awareness behind it.” – pg 259
“Presence: consciousness without thought” – pg 259
“The separation of thinking and awareness happens through the negation of time. When you negate time, you negate the ego.” – pg 265
“You cannot become successful. You can only be successful. Don’t let a mad world tell you that success is anything other than a successful present moment.” – pg 270
“Your entire life journey ultimately consists of the step you are taking at this moment. This doesn’t mean you don’t know where you are going; it just means this step is primary, the destination secondary. And what you encounter at your destination once you get there depends on the quality of this one step. What the future holds for you depends on your state of consciousness now.” – pg 271
“Thinking cuts reality up into lifeless fragments.” – pg 276
“You can only lose something that you have, but you cannot lose something that you are.” – pg 293
Scott Adams: Immortality
“…we’re a simulated (programmed) world left behind by advanced humanoids that shed their bodies billions of years ago. Our simulated world is the closest they could come to immortality. They were romantics, much like ourselves, and couldn’t stand the thought of being separated from their loved ones for eternity. So in our programmed little world, when we feel a special connection to another, it’s because we knew that person when we were real, and the program allows us to feel it again as if new. Thus, when you meet your soul mate, it is a reunion of sorts. And it will happen over and over, in each subsequent life the program provides for you.”
Scott Adams concludes an interesting post on stress with this lovely take on reality.
Terry Heaton on being sixty-four
“I have made many discoveries in this life of mine, but the most significant occurred 12 years ago, when I realized I was an asshole. We’re all assholes, really. It’s just that some of us know it, and those who do are in for a much easier ride.”
— Terry Heaton
God for a Day
For most of us (well, actually, for all of us) God is a mystery. Whatever God is, I’m confident she has a fine sense of humor and might be doing something like this.
Once she knocked out the Heaven and Earth stuff and had a few people running around it occurred to her to put them in charge of the Universe. But she knew a committee was the wrong way to go. They’d come up with those soon enough.
So she decided to rotate the job. Every day, someone new becomes God, with full powers. They can create sunsets or erupting volcanoes or whatever pops into their temporarily divine heads.
And to keep things interesting, there would be no rhyme or reason to selection. Totally random.
Even if the world’s great religions figured this out, they kept it to themselves. You can’t build a functioning religion when there’s a new deity every day. Just keeping up with the artwork would be a nightmare.
Each new god could tell his friends the exciting news if they chose but, being omniscient they could see that could turn out badly. Some couldn’t resist, however.
You’d think after all this time (and all those god’s) the world would be in pretty good shape. But each new god could –and often did– fuck up the good work of previous gods.
So. If today is your day, what will you do?