Sarah's Final Presentation: How the World Is

 Before we begin, I feel we are in need of music. My best writings are always done to music. And “Always My Best”, right?

Might be a bit long for reading, but wasn’t long enough for the writing. 

The questions of how the world IS:

• Time: is it cyclical or linear or a bit of both or neither?

• Will the world naturally reward the good and punish the evil? If
  so, when? 

• What does this sort of belief give a person? A society? 

• What is emptiness? Is it a lack in a negative, positive, or neutral light? Can emptiness be beautiful?

• At what point should we distinguish between the natural and the supernatural? 

• Are humans natural? Is everything we do natural then? Can litter be a part of nature?

• Is there a unity to all things? Could there ever be (or has there ever been any less?)

• Are we too reductivistic? Why or why not? 

Time:

I miss the days of watching Vi Hart on Khan Academy. Can’t find a lot of their stuff now. Beans. I wonder why they took them down? Does anyone know? 

Anyways– this video illustrates precisely the point the book spent so much time trying to make. Linearity isn’t always how we naturally think of numbers. For Vi and Sal, it’s more logarithmic– Vi especially because they’re a mathmusician and have scale to deal with as well. 

For other cultures, it will be other ways. Time lines don’t necessarily have to be lines at all, they can be many different shapes. Circles, asterisks, tied to a place, floating in nothingness… When you take away the assumption that time is linear it does interesting things to assumptions about how the world works– more interesting to an author it does interesting assumptions to how time travel works. 

But that’s not supposed to be the focus of this discussion. We’re supposed to be trying to figure out if I think time is linear. 

Physicists would say no. A line can’t slow down, it can’t speed up. It shouldn’t be warped by gravity– yet time clearly is. And if you don’t know what I’m talking about, you should watch more Dr. Who. (I’d never tell you to go study physics, that would just be rude). 

The BBC has an article about what we get wrong about time. It does a pretty good overview of the scientific side of things, but not necessarily good on the personal side of things. 

I would say time doesn’t really work linearly. I like nature’s cycles. I’m not quite sure I understand what many cultures are trying to get at saying time is tied inherently to place… but I can definitely understand grand circles in universes. I would also posit that for time travel purposes, if time were linear it would have to be like clicking back into this sentence and adding an extra word or two or pressing the backspace key. Those would be the only two types of edits available, deletion and addition. Whereas with cycles there’s the potential to form mobius strips with cut and paste. That would be a more interesting story, canonical speaking– albeit a confusing one if you’re not a fan of Vi Hart and don’t know why the mobius strip is super cool. 

Critic 1: “How can you possibly define the world as simply what you want it to be? On the basis of what is ‘most interesting, canonically speaking’. That’s just stupid and subjective!”
Normally, I would agree with you, but here there is no checkable right answer. It’s not like my opinions on these things will change their existence, if they do in fact exist. If I am forced to make an opinion on these things and facts aren’t available, subjective ideas of interesting storytelling are as good as any other method for defining ultimate truths.

Karma:

The love of yes, the fear of no. Oh woe! Which to choose? It sounds like wishful thinking doesn’t it? But can happy coincidences explain every punishment of evil? What about evil that goes unpunished? Surely it will be punished in the next life, right? 

There is no easy answer for those who love logic. We can’t prove it is, can’t prove it isn’t. Would the best bet be to just take a Pascal's wager on it and hope? Or to enjoy life regardless, like those at the top who often break the rules? I don’t need to give you examples to the endless number of people in power who are corrupt. You probably have at least 5 in mind already. Would it surprise you to know that, in 2005, over 62% of Indians, (that’s over 2x the population of the US at that time by the way) reported that they bribed a public official? And that’s just the number that felt comfortable self reporting. Wikipedia has an article on India's corruption and the numbers aren’t good. Apparently, you have to bribe someone to get almost anything done there. The country most associated with Karma clearly has a lot of people in power who don’t see severe consequences coming for their actions.

Clearly the best option for society and the self is to be the person who gets as much pleasure from sticking by the invisible rules as those above us in status seem to get by breaking them. But one can’t force themselves into that sort of mindset. Or can they?

I don’t think there is karma, we won’t necessarily be rewarded by an outside force for all the unseen good we do. I choose to not believe, but still I hope. As I cannot verify, I cannot trust. I cannot rely. As the beach boys once sang, “wouldn’t it be nice?” But we need to hold each other accountable, not hope someone or something else will take care of it. 

I will say though that the concept of karma gives many things to a society. 

One– it gives the society an excuse to ignore suffering. Clearly, they did something to deserve it, right? So we don’t have to give up our comforts to fix it. 

However, the goal of Karma is to reform the soul through suffering, right? One unfortunate side of the human condition though is that hurt people often hurt other people though… So if it’s the reformation of souls we’re after, you can still see gems in the darkest places, but there’s a reason those places aren’t light. Most of the souls there aren’t shining. You run into a few exceptions, of course, but karma doesn’t work for reformation purposes, only for getting even purposes and to fulfil our sick sense of justice. 

Two– it gives us the permission to turn a blind eye to horrors. Other forces will fix the problem. We can get on with living our own lives instead of punishing others for hurting people. Justice is in the gods’ hands and they’ll take care of it much better than we can. Again, an excuse for your everyday person to not give up their comfort. 

Three– it gives a threatening punishment to keep evildoers in line. Much like hell, Karma is a “oh you can’t believe the amount of punishment you’ll get! You can’t imagine the suffering! Obey my moral code or face pain, insert insult here!” Kinda terrifying and hopefully enough to keep people in line. But what happens when nobody believes it anymore because no one can prove it? If the bluff is called, if divine punishment is no longer effective… then will habit hold out? Will people be good because they like being good? 

Some clearly will not. They have not. 

Critic 2: “But what if they’re guessing and guessing wrong? They’ve made the choice to risk endless punishment on primitive, selfish, and outright childish ideas of 30 second gratification being worth it.”

Don’t cite the Marshmallow Test at me, immortal! I know it just as well as other AP Psych students! If you want me to write out the entirety of that wager as I see it I will. 

If Karma (in reincarnation form) exists:

• Doing good leads to going up whatever hierarchy of creatures there are. 

• There is justice not caused by humans in the world. 

• That justice may (on top of humans’ justice) double punish evildoers who get caught while only single punishing evildoers who get away with it– as it presumably isn’t sentient and doesn’t care about serving twice for the same crime. 

• Doing bad leads to going down said hierarchy of creatures. 

• Since karma is inherently human centric, for some (furries) this may actually be a boon? (Ex, if one of my siblings realized he could become a wolf/dog in his next life by committing crimes he’d totally be down for murdering a few CEOs). 

• Another point to be made here– human discussions on morality (ie is pulling a Luigi actually evil?) are not able to sway Karma as it is simply a force not a sentient creature that can be reasoned with. There can be no grey. 

• Humanity feels no responsibility to punish evil– as that is already taken care of. All that’s left is vengeance. 

• Humans feel no need to help people who are worse off (unless they want to make up for some bad karma by helping someone) because that person clearly deserves their situation. Karma wouldn’t have it otherwise. 

If Karma (in reincarnation form) doesn’t exist:

• Doing good and evil has no effect on oneself besides levels of pleasure, comfort in identity, relationships with others, and appearance in the eyes of society.

• Humans who aren’t caught by other humans will never be directly punished for their actions. They may, if humanity is lucky, receive a reflection of a punishment in the form of guilt or a consequence (you lie and cheat, your partner one day finds out and leaves you). In many cases though, this will not happen. This does not happen. Liars get away everyday.

• Moral drops. Comfort drops. Responsibility to take care of each other rises. Empathy rises. Participation in society and our system of justice rises.

• Systems of justice get put through the wringer. Debates happen on appropriate punishments for crimes. 

• Society has no excuse for ‘thoughts and prayers’ responses from those who could change things. 

• We don’t have to threaten people into being good. 

Since I am of the “I get pleasure from simply being a good person” category, and sticking by the rules does indeed give me joy, it is simple for me to say “a non-karmic believing world will be fine”. That is not necessarily true, it would only be provably true if everyone were like me. So for me, not believing is actually better for the world than believing in karma. I am the “just in case there’s not” person. If no one else will take care of it, I can trust myself to do it.  

Emptiness:
I find emptiness to be a lack– of air, of water, earth, fire, motive, personality, understanding, meaning, ideals, ideas, convictions, thoughts on the matter. Emptiness is bleak, but it doesn’t always have to be. Emptiness, in the best cases, acts as a vacuum, naturally waiting to be filled. It has potential energy. Children, in many ways, are empty. However, they have potential to be filled and the goal of raising them is to fill them with ideas society believes to be right. Can this emptiness be beautiful? Not by itself, but as a comparison and as the option for a future, yes. Curiosity drives my desire to see the blank canvas filled. What will humanity create? This is why immortality is interesting, because you can see the larger canvas and stop to inspect all the smaller ones that are being filled up infinitely. 

Critic 1: “But Sarah, children are also full aren’t they? Personality wise?”

Critic 2: “Remember your own life as a child!” 

I never said children were empty in all ways, that would be misconstruing the point. Even a canvas is made up of fabric and wooden boards. I’ll admit heartily to the fact that kids have bodies – and thereby elements. Children also have obvious motives for their actions. Unfortunately they are often bland and stereotyped, they lack depth and intrigue! Children  have personalities. I cannot verify with my own experience as I don’t remember what it was like to be me as a child, but I have 6 siblings and one of them is not yet an adult. He certainly had a personality as a child. But the personalities are shallow, simple, and depthless. Most children have not sat down and thought about big intriguing questions or even taxes. I’ve babysat for a five year old and a seven year old. Neither could grasp that the money one gives to a shop worker will not be what the worker gets at the end of the day. It will have pieces taken out of it, pieces moved around, and that it’s not even necessarily the same money that will go to the shop that will necessarily go to their paychecks. It was simply too complicated. 

These were good, normal children. They just were empty in a way adults aren’t. They haven’t been filled with experience and complex thoughts yet. They are, after all, children. No convictions or meaning to their lives yet. Children can resolve this far before they reach adulthood–yet we still call them children. It is perhaps a false terminology then. After all, many adults can still be children in this sense. They go about the world not knowing why they’re still here– besides the fact that they’re terrified of not– they hold nothing close to heart. There is nothing they would die for or to uphold, they don’t have an opinion on things people ask them about, only mimicking what is put before them so they can blend in. The children I find annoying, because I see the unmet potential and become impatient. The adults who are yet children I find most curious as they have successfully avoided losing the emptiness of childhood for far beyond what they should. If I was an immortal, I think it would be fun to observe them, play with them, and explore these creatures. 

Perhaps a better term than children would be immature? I find immaturity nauseatingly, pathetically, empty. I want it to be filled! And thereby in adults I find it a sickly curiosity, albeit one I don’t have time to investigate as I am as mortal as the rest of us. I’m busy with my interests at the moment that will take far longer than a single lifespan to muddle through. Come to me when you’re ready to talk about the universe and our place in it and how it relates to our everyday lives. 

All this to say, I think I’m a glass half full when it comes to emptiness. It is bleak, but there is always potential, always hope, and interest in the future. 

  

Nature:

Cartoons count as graphics, right?

I never thought of humans as one with nature until reading HWT by Julian Baggini. Never honestly even gave it thought. It's been ingrained in my mind for so long that we are ‘other’ than nature and ‘polluting’ nature, that I had never wondered about how I could believe in evolution and not in divine purpose, and yet wholeheartedly hold myself apart from the very world that gave me and all past and future versions of me life? How could I presume to protect nature from its creation– that is, or at least was, clearly a part of it? 

Once I started to ask the question, a lot of beliefs that I’d had about my place in this world, the purpose I had set myself, felt as though they were being torn asunder. If humans are clearly beings of nature how could I set myself against what we’ve been doing to it– not just the litter, but the extinctions and the biome destruction and the eutrophication. Why isn’t that natural?

I believe this is what Baggini was trying to convey. If we stop and change our view of what is, then our thought process will sometimes crumble. And that’s okay. 

It was simple to resolve my mental dilemma. All I had to do was refocus. I am a part of something larger than myself. I am a small piece of a movement of humanity. If we are a part of nature, then we are a piece at war with itself over how we will evolve in nature. Will we change its form till it is no longer viable for us? Will we gamble and try to change it to something better? Or will we preserve what is and what has worked? I’m not a gambler. I’m here to preserve what is and what I have found beauty in. I do acknowledge that some future options could be beautiful, but I don’t think their beauty is worth the risk of change. 

I work to preserve what is and will advocate for it. And what ‘Is’ has is our biodiversity, has non-toxic lakes and rivers to swim and enjoy, has no sharp glass shards or rusted cans in the soil, and no plastic choking our neighbors. I want every creature who has a small stream coming out from the side of the hill in their backyard to feel confident letting their child drink that water. I want them to have a meadow in commuting distance to fly kites in and sing to the sky. To have a forest nearby to wander and feast in. To joyfully and safely greet clear skies and sun, and to be able to dance in the rain. This is the nature that I have grown up and been a part of. This is the nature that I want to see exist for all my neighbors, human and non, as far into the future as I can protect.

Critic 1: “... How do we argue against an ‘I want’ statement?”

Critic 2: *Shrugs* “I suppose we could go back to dispute what the book was trying to say with an alternative I believe statement. Or further to the ‘humans are a part of nature’ and try to argue against it.”

Critic 1: “I’d take the religious standpoint with big G god having created humans to rule over nature,  but she’d call it bogus and not useful for her philosophy since she’s not a believer.” *Hesitates.* “Wait, could we get her on not being widely diffusable?” 

Too late, Mephi. Or should I say too early? Since you’re so eager though, let's talk about unity. 

Unity:

Unity has a lot of sections. Unity of the universe– of all things in it. Unity of culture and religion. Unity of thought.
I’m against unity of thought, because that would be boring. No new stories would occur. A reason the prior argument has no weight with me is that I think philosophy encourages us to come up with our own beliefs and opinions, independent of what others believe to be true but always open to new pathways and new questions to be found. A philosophy being generalizable (what Mephi meant by widely diffusable) is the opposite of what I want. If other people come to the same conclusions on their own, fascinating and good for them, but my truth isn’t the whole truth, and although it would make things simpler, life would be far less worth living as it wouldn’t spark curiosity. I can handle a few clones of me– we’d be excellent roommates and have lively conversations and lift each other up. We might even raise our opinions of ourself. But a world of people who only have ever and will ever believe what Sarah believes is quite sad. It would be like a world of parrots. There would be no genuine interaction. Nothing for all these Sarah’s to observe and learn from. Nothing to draw opinions on and to add to our sense of self. No new stories– even the ones we tell each other would have no new input because we all believe the same.  

Critic Mephi: “That is a wild ride to read. You can’t ever prove any of that you know.”

I’m the one best suited to hypothesize what I would do in those scenarios though. Even my imaginary shoulder demon knows is less qualified to speak of the present me than I am to speak of my future self.
Moving on. I don’t think we can prove if all things in the universe are one. After all, a cell, despite its many interior complex systems has no way of knowing it is part of a larger organism. We can only assume based on the systems we see. But it is a logical jump of thought. 

Now, if ‘universal laws’ do hold true to this universe wide organism, then entropy must also hold true. Things are always trying to become more chaotic, less unified. I suppose this could be in the way humans diversify themselves ever further, splitting along finer and finer lines. 

Critic 2: “But just as you can’t prove we are all one, you can’t prove we aren’t many as well. I certainly don’t feel at one with the universe. A lot of the people who claim to have reached said oneness have a lot of reasons (money, power, fame) to claim such things. You can’t really trust their word, and even if they are honest it could have just been a wild trip.”

Sure, but is it better to assume oneness, than to assume we are all individuals? What is gained? What is risked? What is lost? 

If we assume individuality, we risk ignoring the impact of our actions on a wider organism and forfeit responsibility. Perhaps we put down the burden of carrying that responsibility, but I don’t find that burden very heavy at all. I don’t worry that each of my actions could be cancerous to a larger organism, I take it in as the best choice I could make in the moment with the information at hand and my gut instinct– unless I am as a virus to this organism, my gut instinct and the knowledge I am handed should be enough to fulfil my duty to said organism. 

Meanwhile, what do we gain from oneness? We gain a sense of community. We gain a purpose– even if we are too small to truly understand it, when you claim to be a piece of something larger, then you have hope it will survive you and feel a familiarity with all around you. The world is your ally: every rock, every tree, every sunrise and every squirrel you spot is a part of the greater organism– a greater story. It is calming, peaceful, idyllic and at the same time rejuvenating. 

What is there to gain from individuality? A sense of free will and freedom that I have found in my own logical assumptions. But also a sense of isolation. There are no guardrails or people who will come up behind you and fix your mistakes– additional pressure and responsibility to take the place of that which you let go of when you denied unity in all things. Your actions are your own, nobody is responsible and likely no one will come up and help you fix them. There can be power in that– you are going at the world with your own two feet two hands and perhaps one or two friends! You are the change! You’re like the protagonist of your favorite story! But when you are crippled with doubt, confusion and despair; when your friends grow apart from you; when you are left in a loneliness epidemic and you’ve forgotten how to find allies– the feet and hands you trusted your life to are broken, flailing in quicksand. 

What do we lose with oneness? That sense of self importance, of immortality in the “I can do anything” way, not in the “My movement will last forever” way. Some can lose a sense of purpose, while others will find it again. Others trust free will less, and to them everything feels predestined, controlled in a stifling way, but that is not how it is for me.

I like this concept of unity in one larger being. 

Reductionism:
(If you want the song that goes with this, it starts at 12:26 on the music track at the top or here if you don’t want to scroll).

But why? But Why? But WHY? 

Humans have asked this question, reportedly since around 2. As we go through life we can find better answers. And, like when we were little, these answers are far more complex the more we look into them. But the simplest answers are what we digest best and quickest. Reductionism, as it currently is, says the more we look into things (while searching for a single answer) the more we can answer this ultimate question of “why” along with a few others “when” “how” “What next?” to name a few. 

You can see where it is quite useful in the sciences. 

However, the simplest and easiest answers are often not the most complete and when studied further are shown to need other elements to hold them up. It’s not just one factor that causes cancer– lots of things do. Only California knows them all. Life doesn’t work on a single cause and effect, but multiple causes for every living thing. 

Unfortunately, that doesn’t come easily to our brains. So we– especially in a world where time is money and money is life (or at least quality of it) tend to use reductionism a lot just to break things down to their simple parts. 

Is it good? Not for a complete understanding of the topic. But for most practical purposes it services. 

Do we (as Americans or as humans) do too much of it? Now that is a harder question. Too much is subjective, obviously. Humanity I would say does too much of it for my liking, but that’s more a flaw of biology than personality. Don’t judge a cover by the book and whatnot, but we often reduce things down to their covers anyway, just because there is so much to learn nowadays. We don’t have the lifespan (or attention span) for everyone to become experts at everything. It is written into our DNA to take things in and make judgements in an instant. To reduce things down to its smallest part. To break atoms as soon as we can. It’s our knee jerk reaction, and it leads to many flaws of the system where we overlook deeper meanings and depth of personhood. We dismiss people before we’ve really taken their full measure. 

Assume for just one moment, that everyone has as vivid an internal life and is just as real as you. You will never see that one stranger at the renaissance fair or on the subway in their entirety. They are so human, so full, and yet we reduce them to only how our interaction– or lack thereof– goes. Isn’t that unfair? Isn’t it heartbreaking? Isn’t it unfathomably lonely?

Isn’t that why people find the idea of an omniscient being so comforting? Because it is someone who can know them? 

Critic Mephi: “I would just like to be pedantic and point out that California does not, in fact, know all cancer causing chemicals. They just identify who doesn't bother with the expensive testing (because they know it will fail or because it is too expensive to do every few years) and a very few who do bother and know their stuff is bad for you.”

Critic 2: “But wouldn’t being non-reductionistic not allow us to be human in the same way? We would be forced to confront everything everywhere all at once! Our personalities would be warped by such forced expansion. We’d never have time for what matters because we’d be so focused on learning absolutely everything about everything. Breaking it down allows us to ignore noise and focus on what matters to us and for us. It’s a useful tool.”

Yes, but a useful tool at what cost? What does it mean to be human? To be a person? If ignoring and resulting ignorance is part of personhood, do we really want to define ourselves and limit ourselves as such?  Wouldn’t being ‘plugged into existence’ and having a mind capable of juggling all the ins and outs of the systems that make up what our minds currently see as simple cause and effect, allow us to see the beauty much clearer? To understand each other so fully is to eradicate loneliness. It might not be something we are fully able to embrace, but it doesn’t mean we should strive for it any less. 

Take the time to observe. Go a little deeper than that first glance. Take a step forward. 

Finally! Finished. 

Hardest thing to do for this: Finding relevant links. I bet you can tell, some of them were definitely stretching relevancy. I'm going to assume the EU cookies thing works fine and press publish now...