A student holds a placard at a walkout protesting Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis’ attacks on public education outside Orlando City Hall on April 21, 2023 in Orlando, Florida.
(Photo: Paul Hennessy/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
Webster’s Dictionary & Thesaurus and The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank are among the books that the Escambia County School District has yanked from library shelves.
Dictionaries and encyclopedias are among the more than 2,800 books that a Florida school district has pulled from library shelves in an effort to comply with a law that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed last year.
Judd Legum, author of the Popular Information newsletter, reported Wednesday that the Escambia County School District said the books that have been banned pending further investigation “may violate H.B. 1069,” which “gives residents the right to demand the removal of any library book that ‘depicts or describes sexual conduct,’ as defined under Florida law, whether or not the book is pornographic.”
“Rather than considering complaints, the Escambia County School Board adopted an emergency rule last June that required the district’s librarians to conduct a review of all library books and remove titles that may violate H.B. 1069,” Legum noted. “Each school in Escambia County has thousands of titles. As a result, many school libraries were closed at the beginning of the school year pending the completion of the review.”
1. A Florida school district has removed @MerriamWebster's Dictionary for Students from library shelves, saying it may violate a law championed by @RonDeSantis
Florida led the United States in book bans during the 2022-2023 school year, with PEN America documenting 1,972 instances of bans across 37 districts.
“In a state with approximately 70 districts, this means that over half of all Florida school districts experienced banning activity,” PEN noted in a recent report.
PEN, Penguin Random House, and a coalition of authors joined parents and students last year in filing a lawsuit against Escambia County in federal court, arguing that the mass removal of books from school libraries violates the plaintiffs’ “rights to free speech and equal protection under the law.”
A hearing in the case was scheduled to take place on Wednesday. Florida’s Republican attorney is backing Escambia’s school board.
“In a brief submitted by the state of Florida in support of Escambia, Attorney General Ashley Moody argued that the school board could ban books for any reason because the purpose of public school libraries is to ‘convey the government’s message,’ and that can be accomplished through ‘the removal of speech that the government disapproves,'” Legum noted Wednesday. “This is a novel argument about the purpose of school libraries.
In addition to Webster’s Dictionary & Thesaurus for Students and The American Heritage Children’s Dictionary, Escambia County is denying students access to biographies of former Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, the singer and songwriter Beyoncé, and talk show host Oprah Winfrey, according to a list obtained by the Florida Freedom to Read Project.
The list also includes The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank.
“The Escambia County School Board banned most of these books at the request of Vicki Baggett, a high school English teacher in the county,” Legum reported. “Baggett is responsible for hundreds of challenges in Escambia County and neighboring counties.”
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To be human is to be a miracle of evolution conscious of its own miraculousness — a consciousness beautiful and bittersweet, for we have paid for it with a parallel awareness not only of our fundamental improbability but of our staggering fragility, of how physiologically precarious our survival is and how psychologically vulnerable our sanity. To make that awareness bearable, we have evolved a singular faculty that might just be the crowning miracle of our consciousness: hope.
Hope — and the wise, effective action that can spring from it — is the counterweight to the heavy sense of our own fragility. It is a continual negotiation between optimism and despair, a continual negation of cynicism and naïveté. We hope precisely because we are aware that terrible outcomes are always possible and often probable, but that the choices we make can impact the outcomes.
How to harness that uniquely human paradox in living more empowered lives in even the most vulnerable-making circumstances is what the great humanistic philosopher and psychologist Erich Fromm (March 23, 1900–March 18, 1980) explores in the 1968 gem The Revolution of Hope: Toward a Humanized Technology (public library), written in an era when both hope and fear were at a global high, by a German Jew who had narrowly escaped a dismal fate by taking refuge first in Switzerland and then in America when the Nazis seized power.
Hope is a decisive element in any attempt to bring about social change in the direction of greater aliveness, awareness, and reason. But the nature of hope is often misunderstood and confused with attitudes that have nothing to do with hope and in fact are the very opposite.
Half a century before the physicist Brian Greene made his poetic case for our sense of mortality as the wellspring of meaning in our ephemeral lives, Fromm argues that our capacity for hope — which has furnished the greatest achievements of our species — is rooted in our vulnerable self-consciousness. Writing well before Ursula K. Le Guin’s brilliant unsexing of the universal pronoun, Fromm (and all of his contemporaries and predecessors, male and female, trapped in the linguistic convention of their time) may be forgiven for using man as shorthand for the generalized human being:
Man, lacking the instinctual equipment of the animal, is not as well equipped for flight or for attack as animals are. He does not “know” infallibly, as the salmon knows where to return to the river in order to spawn its young and as many birds know where to go south in the winter and where to return in the summer. His decisions are not made for him by instinct. He has to make them. He is faced with alternatives and there is a risk of failure in every decision he makes. The price that man pays for consciousness is insecurity. He can stand his insecurity by being aware and accepting the human condition, and by the hope that he will not fail even though he has no guarantee for success. He has no certainty; the only certain prediction he can make is: “I shall die.”
What makes us human is not the fact of that elemental vulnerability, which we share with all other living creatures, but the awareness of that fact — the way existential uncertainty worms the consciousness capable of grasping it. But in that singular fragility lies, also, our singular resilience as thinking, feeling animals capable of foresight and of intelligent, sensitive decision-making along the vectors of that foresight.
Man is born as a freak of nature, being within nature and yet transcending it. He has to find principles of action and decision making which replace the principles of instinct. He has to have a frame of orientation that permits him to organize a consistent picture of the world as a condition for consistent actions. He has to fight not only against the dangers of dying, starving, and being hurt, but also against another danger that is specifically human: that of becoming insane. In other words, he has to protect himself not only against the danger of losing his life but also against the danger of losing his mind. The human being, born under the conditions described here, would indeed go mad if he did not find a frame of reference which permitted him to feel at home in the world in some form and to escape the experience of utter helplessness, disorientation, and uprootedness. There are many ways in which man can find a solution to the task of staying alive and of remaining sane. Some are better than others and some are worse. By “better” is meant a way conducive to greater strength, clarity, joy, independence; and by “worse” the very opposite. But more important than finding the better solution is finding some solution that is viable.
Art by Pascal Lemaître from Listen by Holly M. McGhee
As we navigate our own uncertain times together, may a thousand flowers of sanity bloom, each valid so long as it is viable in buoying the human spirit it animates. And may we remember the myriad terrors and uncertainties preceding our own, which have served as unexpected awakenings from some of our most perilous civilizational slumbers. Fromm — who devoted his life to illuminating the inner landscape of the individual human being as the tectonic foundation of the political topography of the world — composed this book during the 1968 American Presidential election. He was aglow with hope that the unlikely ascent of an obscure, idealistic, poetically inclined Senator from Minnesota by the name of Eugene McCarthy (not to be confused with the infamous Joseph McCarthy, who stood for just about everything opposite) might steer the country toward precisely such pathways to “greater strength, clarity, joy, independence.”
McCarthy lost — to another Democratic candidate, who would in turn lose to none other than Nixon — and the country plummeted into more war, more extractionism, more reactionary nationalism and bigotry. But the very rise of that unlikely candidate contoured hopes undared before — hopes some of which have since become reality and others have clarified our most urgent work as a society and a species. Fromm writes:
A man who was hardly known before, one who is the opposite of the typical politician, averse to appealing on the basis of sentimentality or demagoguery, truly opposed to the Vietnam War, succeeded in winning the approval and even the most enthusiastic acclaim of a large segment of the population, reaching from the radical youth, hippies, intellectuals, to liberals of the upper middle classes. This was a crusade without precedent in America, and it was something short of a miracle that this professor-Senator, a devotee of poetry and philosophy, could become a serious contender for the Presidency. It proved that a large segment of the American population is ready and eager for Humanization… indicating that hope and the will for change are alive.
Having given reign to his own hope and will for change in this book “appealing to the love for life (biophilia) that still exists in many of us,” Fromm reflects on a universal motive force of resilience and change:
Only through full awareness of the danger to life can this potential be mobilized for action capable of bringing about drastic changes in our way of organizing society… One cannot think in terms of percentages or probabilities as long as there is a real possibility — even a slight one — that life will prevail.
The Devil is numbered fifteen and shows a figure, usually male and satyr-like, half-man and half-animal. Sometimes, male and female forms are shown chained or trapped at his feet. The Thoth deck (shown here) has the Devil as a goat, appearing against a background of the male sex organs. His third eye represents the Eye of God and the staff across his chest is topped with the Winged Disk symbol and double-headed snakes.The Devil card is often misunderstood and feared. However, before Christianity became a leading religion, there were several pantheons which contained fertility gods and they were often depicted as animals – the Horned God of the Wicca for example, servant and consort of the Goddess. The Devil does not therefore necessarily represent an evil being.The Devil is the personification of the animal, instinctual and even bestial parts of us. Pre-occupation with matters connected to the Devil can lead to degradation and sheer ugliness, but by identifying and accepting the darkness within we learn to discover that it is simply the dark side of our light.
The Capricorn New Moon helps us tap into our executive ability, alongside the urge to organize and simplify life. This may be something we have known needed to happen for a while, but it’s been difficult to rally the energy, focus, or physical strength. Yet the Sea Goat can now handle this with a lighter than usual touch, and there may be a fresh motivation to get moving, adding fuel to the operation.
We may be faced with a situation that necessitates a thinning down of some kind — whether of possessions, or finances, or even the physical body. The Sun and Moon hang in between other planets in Capricorn: Mars on one side, Pluto on the other. Although they are not closely conjunct in either case, we might nonetheless see the New Moon as besieged by these planets. Whether we view their forces as internal, or as other people and situations, depends on our context; we may be looking at anger and resentment, or perhaps jealousy and overwhelm. Yet, in choosing to actively reduce what we hold onto, or tussle with, we can manage the intensity of the experiences we’re going through.
The Moon’s closest major aspect is a trine to Uranus in Taurus, showing how an innovative, even rebellious approach can win the day. If we thought we were stuck with just one way of doing things, we could be proved wrong, or grasp hold of different methodology. Uranus can also sometimes deliver a surprise that’s a definite blessing. As this is a trine, we’ll need to recognize the offer and act promptly, for this special opportunity could sail past almost as soon as it arrives!
With Taurus, financial bonuses are possible, but we might also create our own luck. With Uranus retrograde, it is worth checking numbers to be sure calculations are accurate, and correcting any erroneous behavior affecting balance in our relationships. Becoming more familiar with new aspects of technology could also help us at the human level.
I’m reminded of a situation where a friend regularly picked up parking costs on our trips, due to my lack of familiarity with a changed system relying on phone app payments. Finding a moment to explore the app, I realized I could add any vehicle’s registration, meaning I now could easily pay parking costs for my friend’s vehicle! I felt far more comfortable in the friendship, and happy pride in being a bit more tech savvy — a win-win situation!
The Capricorn New Moon sextiles Neptune in Pisces, emphasizing the power of subtle forces. Neptune may make us feel somewhat “other” compared with people around us, but can also lead to eventual connections, especially where the Moon’s involvement helps us channel inspiration.
A recent Sky Arts TV documentary followed ’80s electronic musical artist Gary Numan, whose innovative sound and presentation intertwined with personal struggles with Asperger Syndrome. He has come to be seen as ahead of his time, but at the height of early success, his style of delivery of electropop content was strongly criticized by the musical press, judging him as ‘wooden’, and a knock-off of David Bowie.
Dave Grohl of Nirvana and the Foo Fighters, a cameo interviewee, had sympathy with Numan’s feeling like a social outsider for his musical proclivities. Natally, both men have Moon–Neptune conjunct, and each has reached fans in powerful ways, despite, or maybe even partly due to, great personal suffering. (Grohl struggled with depression, and painfully distanced himself from music for a long stretch, following bandmate Kurt Cobain’s death.) Both Numan and Grohl have become living music legends with Neptunian, near-mythic status! Whilst the Moon sextiles Neptune, maybe we, too, can create something inspiring, with lasting impact.
This article is from the Mountain Astrologer by Diana McMahon Collis
“I do not believe in free will…” — Albert Einstein
Pic: image by the author
Intro
“When you have eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.”
— Arthur Conan Doyle
Recently I had the pleasure of Zooming with a public intellectual. (No name-dropping, promise.)
Roughly 15 minutes in, he glanced at his watch. A yawn followed. He blinked at the screen.
I sighed. Are you not entertained, dear Professor? I wondered as his mind wandered.
Perhaps he expected fireworks…
…Perhaps he expected a verbal Mike Tyson but instead was treated to Mister Rogers, my fellow Pisces.
Ahh, I’m a Leap Year guy — “agreeable” by nature. But being nice and agreeable tends to bore people.
Here’s the thing… my radical thoughts on pages spring from ideas, not from personality. I merely do a good job of following a good argument’s logic till the finish line, no matter what.
With the professor’s anticipated “clash of the intellects” seemingly nowhere in sight, he again glanced at his watch.
“Ahem, Mr. Turner…” he mumbled, “I hoped you’d challenge my agnosticism. So far, though, you’ve been tautologous, nay, hedging your bet.”
I flashed a smile. After all, he’d just cracked the door for me, later on, to end our chat with Maximus’ famed line:
“Are you not entertained?”
“Since we’re on the subject of ‘betting,’ ” I said, “any thoughts on Pascal’s famed wager, sir?”
His upper lip flickered, bordering on a smile. “Well, Pascal’s wager is childish at best, harmful at worst…”
*Quick recap of Pascal’s wager:
Blaise Pascal seemingly brought common sense to theology. How? He told the world to always bet on the favorite.
According to Pascal, because we’ll never gather enough evidence to either prove or disprove God’s existence, “smart money” calls for betting as follows:
→Push all your chips to the table and bet that God exists!
Why?
If right, you have everything to gain (Heaven) and nothing to lose. On the flip side, if you don’t bet, you risk losing it all (Hell).
“Your thoughts on Pascal’s gamble?” he asked.
But to his surprise, my answer was simple:
“Pascal’s wager is wrong for one simple reason — God doesn’t play dice.”
For those initiated into the mysteries, “Spinoza’s God” is merely a code-word for a mathematical theology.
Perhaps the mathematical physicist Lord Kelvin best summed up Einstein’s view when he called “mathematics the only true metaphysics.”
What Einstein loved most about Spinoza was this: of all the philosophers, he was the first to take the father of modern science seriously…
…According to Galileo, it’s impossible to understand the universe without knowing “the language in which it’s written: the language of Mathematics.”
Indeed, this is a uni-, not a multiverse. And because the prefix uni- means oneness, Spinoza based his entire philosophy on the insight mathematics is built on the “One.”
In Spinoza’s view:
→ Let the mathematician’s number theory define the number one as “neither prime nor composite” — i.e., in the number world whatever is one cannot be created or destroyed.
→ Let the priest, wearing a white clerical collar, preach why one “God cannot be created or destroyed.”
→ Let the physicist, wearing a white lab coat, experiment until proving why one “Energy cannot be created or destroyed.”
In each instance, Spinoza anticipated Bertrand Russell’s classic definition of mathematics — the art of repeating the same thing using different words.
So far as the qualities attributed to this one principle remains constant across all branches, Tesla put it best:
“What one man calls God, another calls the laws of physics.”
—Nikola Tesla
As you’re set to see, there’s a reason Einstein wrote this: “Everyone who’s seriously involved in the pursuit of sciencebecomes convinced that a spirit is manifest in the laws of the Universe.”
G.E. Moore, a founder of the analytic tradition, showed why a “genius” merely learns what people Knew yesterday, removes the letter “K,” and then repackages it as new today.
According to Moore’s student John Maynard Keynes, it was impossible to sit through a lunch — let alone a lecture — without enduring Moore paraphrase the immortal Socratic method:
“What exactly do you mean?”
“If it appeared under cross-examination that you did not mean exactlyanything,” said Keynes, “you lay under a strong suspicion of meaning nothing whatever.”
In an age where influencers on social media talk a lot without saying a lot, I can’t help but think of Moore’s catchphrase.
“God” and “truth” are tossed around but rarely defined clearly. Frustrating stuff. No wonder today’s philosophers are obsessed with clear definitions.
(*Note: here lies the DNA of Google and Amazon’s keyword-ranking algorithms.)
As you’re set to see, mathematics — the very language of science — is nothing but an old game of using precise definitions as solid ground to generate structures.
Bertrand Russell is one of history’s greatest polymaths.
Russell once recalled an incident that revealed the true nature of mathematics. Back in childhood, Russell’s elder brother (Frank) tried to teach him Euclidean geometry.
The instant the elder told him “these are the axioms,” Russell objected. After all, the pesky youth reasoned — the ground itself must first be demonstrated.
His brother patiently countered by reminding the youth that, unless he agreed with the assumptions (axioms), they’d never be able to “get on with it.”
If you truly understand this, you abruptly have insight into why Einstein was convinced “God doesn’t play dice.”
“Mathematics consists of proving the most obvious thing in the least obvious way.”
— George Pólya
When Einstein was asked to define axioms, he called them “implicit definitions.” By implicit, he meant the definition hides within the concept.
(*Note: axioms are the very heart of mathematical proof systems.)
Take for example a triangle…
…If, say, a 5-year-old has no prior knowledge of a triangle but were to unpack the concept — by defining it —guess what? She’ll eventually realize whenever you use the sign “triangle,” you’ve also indirectly signified three sides.
Why?
Simply put, contained within the very idea of a triangle are the attributes of three sides and three vertices. Because such implicit definitions are the heart of mathematics, this makes axioms the basis of science too.
Notice what’s being suggested here…
…Mathematics is nothing but the formal game of outwardly demonstrating what already lies hidden inwardly. This explains why once a proof is finished, the proud mathematician stamps QED at the end.
(*Note: QED = Latin phrase for “that which was to be demonstrated.”)
This process of “taking out” or revealing what lies hidden is logic, in a nutshell. This explains why logicians and mathematicians are both disqualified from Nobel Prize considerations.
Chesterton was right: “You can only find truth with logic if you have already found truth without it.”
In short, whoever has a firm handle on the philosophy of mathematics understands there’s no “science” without assuming the existence of what ancient philosophers called Archē (Greek: ‘first principle,’ ‘absolute origin,’ etc.)
“Obvious,” warned E.T. Bell, “is the most dangerous word in mathematics.”
It’s obvious the word becoming means “coming to be”… right? Or as Aristotle once put it, “Everything which comes to be, comes to be out of.”
Wait… Coming to be ‘out of what’?
Being!
Wait… Before proceeding, let me stress this important point:
BEing→ BEcoming (coming to BEing)
Aha! Because the only thing knowable is what already exists, the words being and existence must be interchangeable.
Epistemology, then, never extends beyond accounting for how actual reality, which is hidden, is made known via development.
In every such case, the predetermined goal already sleeps in the egg. Yes! Such predestination always steers development. Always… in all instances. To grasp this insight is to come to grips with Aristotle’s entelechy and teleology….
…Given that Aristotle fathered biology, unsurprisingly today’s genetics tells us the zygote is pregnant with all our genetic instructions. Aristotle preferred to say “the entelechy of an acorn is to become an oak tree.”
Excellent!
From childhood to adulthood, such development merely unpacks the height, eye color, etc., which lay asleep in the zygote from the outset.
If you truly grasp the above, you grasp why every religious tradition can’t help but hint at destiny:
“This Man, delivered over by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God…” — Holy Bible
“[Allah] Who created all things and fashioned them in good proportion; [Allah] Who determined and guided them…” — Noble Quran
So far as the “law of karma” is deeply rooted in Hinduism, Buddhism and Taoism — what’s already understood needs no explanation.
As for those staunch materialists who believe strictly in observable matter, ahem, just know this: the logical method (scientific method) can never do anything but account for how the coming out takes effect.
BEing (birth) → BEcoming (life) → BEing (death)
The starting point is always assumed, or we couldn’t “get on with it,” as Russell’s brother pointed out. But if becoming always springs from being, isn’t it clear this suggests — the finish line sleeps in the starting blocks?
Like the scientist, the mathematician turns a deaf ear to the starting blocks and finish line. The entire process of development (becoming) marks what mathematicians call a structure. Hence mathematics is also known as the abstract “science of structures.”
The scientist starts investigating at the very moment the newborn Universe banged in a big way into being, or coming to be, yet suspends judgment on the source of becoming…
….Socrates’ star pupil, Plato, however, scoffed at what he called this childish game of continually “taking out the actual” via demonstration. He dismissed the logical approach as “always becoming without ever being.”
Of course, isn’t it obvious we shouldn’t expect anything more from mathematics — máthēma (Greek: ‘what one gets to know’)?
A teenager lies about getting good grades. Weeks later when his father holds up the report card, the lad’s eyes well up with tears.
“Father…” he says, “will I be punished?”
His father sighs, pulling his son in for a hug. He then whispers: “Son, in this life, the only lies you’ll be punished for are those that you tell yourself.”
I’ve lived enough life to know my role on the world’s stage…
…Born on Leap (Year) Day at 3:03, I’ve been fated to play the part of a truth-teller. “Amor fati…” whispers Nietzsche from the grave. “Love your fate — which is in fact your life.”
And so, when a public intellectual “randomly” reaches out to me, I know why.
You see, in this life, only three types of people dare to tell the Truth with a capital “T”: children, fools and drunks.
Perhaps this explains why Schopenhauer called every child in a way a genius and every genius is in a way a child. After all, what more is a genius than a grown-up who never quite grows up?
As for when my latest visitor asked me to expound on Pascal’s wager, he knowingly set the stage. His heart hungered for the Truth with a capital “T.” And by “truth” in this sense, dear reader, I mean…
…“What is Truth?” asked Pontius Pilate, and then like an absentee father he exited stage left before his seed could bear fruit.
Perhaps like most, Pilate preferred the darkness of ignorance. Ignorance, after all, allows us to ignore reality, if only briefly. As Socrates warned, life’s only good is knowledge and her only evil is ignorance.
Perhaps Pilate wasn’t so much afraid of the dark as he was what the darkness hides.
At times people don’t care to hear the truth, said Nietzsche, because they fear the sound of reality will drown out their illusions. And so, to answer Pilate’s question, the Truth with a capital “T” is simple.
If by the word “God,” we use this sign to signify the ultimate reason from which all such reasoning flows — what Spinoza defined as “that whose essence involves existence” — well, because everything on the world’s stage has a reason for being here, or else there can be no science (law of causality), the following conclusion is inescapable:
→ The only reason for a creation is for a Creator to create a creature in which “It” can recreate Itself.
Bingo!
“All this is Brahman. That [Brahman] is one, without a second,” reads the Upanishads.
Yoga (‘union with the One’) not only serves as Hinduism’s one goal but as any philosopher of religion will confess — such oneness comprises the one great truth of religion.
That is to say (in chronological order):
“The real yogi, with all passions subdued, is ONE with Brahman” — Lord Krishna
“Here, O Israel, the Lord is God, the Lord is ONE” — Moses
“Heaven means to be ONE with God” — Confucius
“If you open yourself, you are ONE with the Tao, and can embody it completely” — Lao Tzu
“The end of life is to be like [ONE with] God” — Socrates
“My Father and I are ONE” — Jesus Christ
“The ONEness of Allah” — Prophet Muhammad
To believe in science is to believe in mathematics — the very language of science. And because the number 1 is to mathematics what light is to Sun, what here is to Now, it’s no wonder history’s greatest scientist…
…the very genius responsible for discovering gravity and calculus concluded as follows:
“He who thinks half-heartedly will not believe in [one] God; but he who really thinks has to believe in [one] God.”
— Sir Isaac Newton
In short, if by the word “God” we mean the same thing as the mathematician means by “1” and the scientist means by “energy,” isn’t it apparent for the One to transform into the Many, the former must first endure an identity crisis?
VI. “God’s Ouroboros”
The Ouroborus symbolizes whatever eats itself for survival. Pic: flickr.com
An artist is locked inside a room.
Aside from a brush, paint and blank canvas (tabula rasa), the room is empty. Walls, white. Windows, nada.
And, oh, our artist has been afflicted with a bad case of amnesia!
With no recollection, what’s he, pardon, she to do?
In the Western tradition, our artist spends a lifetime reflecting and recollecting what she once knew… *hint, hint.
This process attributed to Plato and Aristotle, called mimesis, reveals why in the West before we “know something,” we must first recognize it.
(*Note: the prefix re- means to “do again.”)
In the Far East, the world’s first religion prefers a more poetic account of our “artist.”
In Hindusim, the only possible way the indivisible, non-physical One (Brahman) could transform into the divisible, physical Many was to mimic a “magician” and trick mortals with the veil of Maya. (Pic: AdikkaChannels.)
In Hinduism, this world of ours comprises Brahman’s divine play. (Brahman = ultimate reality or “God.”)
According to the ancient Vedas, Brahman used divine magic to briefly “forget Itself,” which, of course, is impossible. After all, Brahman can’t be created or destroyed but can only appear to change from one form to another… sound familiar?
Appearances are deceptive indeed!
Of course, if Brahman is all-powerful and all-knowing, not to mention exists outside time, well, how on earth could the byproducts of this “divine magic” exert freedom of will?
They can’t…
…Well, not in the truest sense.
Of course, so long as mortals remain asleep, they dream of free will while under the intoxicating spell of Maya. Naive audiences are convinced Houdini pulls a big rabbit out of a small hat.
Plato called such blissful ignorance, reaped from sleeping with eyes wide open, the byproduct of being a prisoner still stuck in the Cave.
It’s not until we awaken to reality — that is, turn on the light in the darkness — do we become enlightened. This explains why in addition to the title “Buddha,” Siddhartha is also called the “Awakened One.”
If the One is all there was, is or will ever be, this results in an Ouroborous.
Bingo!
Again, if the creator’s nature alone exists, the creature’s sole purpose must be, well, to represent that which is forever present…
…To reproduce that which is the only produce.
Aha! No wonder Jesus of Nazareth dubbed the One “my Father.” After all, just as a boy is said to be “the spitting image of his father,” so far as his child merely reproduces his father’s genes, Jesus strove to reproduce the invisible One in the visible many.
“When you see me [flesh],” Jesus said, “you see my father [spirit].”
Dear reader, as we near another Leap Year, the energy pulls me down the metaphysical rabbit hole…
“You take the blue pill, the story ends.” I’ll abruptly end this piece and you’ll “wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe.”
Ah, but if “you take the red pill, you stay in wonderland,”and I get to show you how deep the metaphysical rabbit hole goes.
Abracadabra!
“Sir, ever seen ‘Alice in Wonderland’?” Pandora asked.
The Teacher thought better of dismissing his precocious pupil. “Of course! The guy you know as Lewis Carroll, before adopting that pen name, was the logician Charles Dodgson.”
“Well, sir,” Pandora said, “remember when the White Queen asked Alice, ‘Can you do addition?’ and then the Queen added, ‘What’s one and one and one and one and one and one and one and one and one and one?’ ”
“Point well taken,” the Teacher said. “Never heard n + 1 expressed so blatantly.”
A great Japanese mathematician named Oka Kiyoshi, whose death-day happens to be my birthday, called the number one “dangerous.” And remember, obvious is themost dangerous word in mathematics.
If “God” is 1 — oh-oh…
God can’t escape Its own Ourborous any more than can the number 1 escape its own oneness. Why?
God = 1
(Now you know why 1 x 1 = 1.)
We can’t possibly get the numbers 2 (1,1) or 3 (1,1,1) or any such natural number(s) without the indivisible One having to, well, “magically” fall away from its own nature…
…Poof!
As for the noted “fall” away from, if Satan was initially an angel — pardon, an “arch” one to be exact — said to have lived with God in Heaven, isn’t the following takeaway clear?
The only possible “sin” that could’ve arisen was separation from this original state.
What more is separation than to fall away from?
→ Aha! No wonder Saint Paul warned Romans “the wages of sin is death.” After all, the death of the original, immaterial nature was the price charged for the material world.
→ Aha! No wonder before there was a before, the original Fall of the fallen angel planted the metaphysical seed to become the physical Fall of Man.
→ Aha! The original sin is thereby made flesh.
Because the fallen angel symbolizes the fall from the original nature, it’s apparent the word “Satan” merely symbolizes fulfilling Reason’s necessary condition for a rational world (cosmos).
Indeed, between one and none — there lies an infinity.
No wonder Leibniz suspected the number 0 corresponds to the Judeo-Christian conception of a “devil.” If God is everything, the only alternative is nothing… right?
Positive (1) merged with its own negation (0) — go figure! Here lies the heart of the world’s yin and yang. Or as Lao Tzu wrote in the Tao Te Ching: “the world is formed from the Void, like utensils from a block of wood.”
In short, the equation is simple:
The only way something timelesscan BEcome time + The only way something non-physical can BEcome physical = BEing had to divorce Itself, from Itself, to BEcome Itself again.
Bingo!
When the saint says she’s saved due to being born again, i.e., “born of the spirit”…
…When the yogi says thru yoga (‘union with the One’) he’s thereby been liberated from “the cycle of reincarnation,” — i.e., the One having to “kill off” its nature to reincarnate into flesh…
…Is it not clear why Einstein called time a stoplight that prevents everything from crashing into a single point? (Singularity… *wink, wink.)
Time is always becoming without ever actually being, Plato whispers.
If Being is eternal and thus everywhere, this means “space” must be a cosmic pizza slicer that chops the omnipresent whole into parts. But right here can no more leave the present than can right now have been absent yesterday.
In short, the deeper we plunge down this metaphysical rabbit hole, the clearer it becomes why Einstein said this:
“I want to know God’s thoughts — everything else is details.”
— Einstein
VIII. Einstein Believed in ‘Destiny’ Till the Very End
“I am a determinist. As such, I do not believe in free will.”
— Einstein
A day after Einstein’s birthday, his best friend (Besso) met his death-day. Think about that for a second…
…Einstein wrote the following in a touching letter to the grieving Besso family:
Now he has departed from this strange world a little ahead of me. That signifies nothing. For us believing physicists, the distinction between past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.
Bingo!
Look deep into the word coincidence, and its mathematical root coincide (“agree in nature”) reveals why Einstein was adamant whoever “looks deep into nature will understand everything better.”
Look deep into nature and, perhaps, you’ll repeatedly glimpse such peculiar patterns as the following:
→ Stephen Hawking was the most celebrated physicist since Einstein.
→ Hawking’s death-daycoincidently fell on Einstein’s birthday.
→ Einstein’s birthday coincidently falls on Pi Day (3.14), the most famous number in mathematics. Not to mention, both physicists coincidently died at age 76.
→ Hawking is coincidentlyborn on the very same day the Father of Modern Science (Galileo) died. As for Galileo’s death-day, it coincidently occurred the same year Sir Isaac Newton was born.
→ In short, History’s four most influential physicists are coincidently linked on the same scientific chain.
“In human freedom, in the philosophical sense, I am definitely a disbeliever,” Einstein explained. “Everybody acts not only under external compulsion but also in accordance with inner necessity.”
In Einstein’s study, along with a portrait of Newton rested a bust of his favorite philosopher, Arthur Schopenhauer.
It was from Schopenhauer that Einstein learned though a man can choose what he likes, he can’t possibly choose what to like.
Take me for example…
…Had not my father stood 6’3 and mother 5’10, chances are I wouldn’t stand 6’4.
Given that I’m tall + Black American + grew up in the inner-city —three ingredients that boost any youth’s chances of gravitating toward basketball — my genotype and environment shaped my desire to play basketball.
“You don’t see something until you have the right metaphor to let you perceive it.”
— James Gleick
Of each person’s 60,000 daily thoughts, researchers estimate roughly 80 percent occur in pictures.
“See what I mean?” goes the saying.
For this reason, Aristotle concluded mastering metaphors is a sign of genius. After all, a metaphor reaches for the heavens… strips a metaphysical idea of its “meta”… and then brings it back down to the physical.
(Drum roll) And so, let’s try out the following metaphor…
…A lab rat is born inside a maze.
From the rat’s perspective, as he comes of age, he knows not whether a mad scientist or tree or breeze was responsible for the grand appearance. The only thing for certain he can say is this: “I’m here… now.”
Excellent!
Sure, this lab rat appears free to roam as he pleases — go here, go there. Ahh, but hasn’t it long been said appearances are deceptive?
With each passing day, the lab rat appears to make plans to freely will things into existence. Ahh, but here’s the catch: the rodent is strictly forbidden from ever leaving the confines of the maze.
The maze has a distinct design — interconnected paths, which in turn directly influence the rodent’s behavior. No wonder, then, one fateful evening when the lab rat drops dead, he does so without ever leaving the maze.
In short, if this lab rat could reflect over his life, from birthday to death-day, he’d echo Schopenhauer’s grand insight:
You can choose what you like, but cannot choose what to like.
X. The Takeaway
Armed with the Socratic method, it’s apparent the word control reflects Einstein’s insight.
To control something means “to guide or influence” it.
→ Now ask yourself: when did you, a mere mortal, guide or influence your birthday?
→ Now ask yourself: when did you, a mere mortal, guide or influence the environment in which you grew up?
→ Now ask yourself: when will you, a mere mortal, guide or influence your death-day?
Well, then, given that we’re all caught swinging on this pendulum between two limits called birth and death, when do we — mere mortals — ever actually get to guide or influence… anything?
Beginning point (birth) → Middle point (life) → End point (death) (Pic: geralt on Pixabay)
From Einstein’s insistence that “God doesn’t play dice” down to modern genetics, Nature’s greatest paradox holds.
No wonder Einstein confessed he “believes in Spinoza’s God.” After all, Spinoza identified God with Nature… with the Universe. Spinoza’s magnum opus, Ethics, can best be summed up in one sentence:
To truly realize God or Nature never gave you free will, will free you.
Bingo!
Unsurprisingly when the world attempted to shower Einstein with the title “genius,” he abruptly cleared things up:
“I claim credit for nothing! Everything is determined, the beginning as well as the end, by forces over which we have no control. It is determined for the insect as well as for the star. Human beings, vegetables or cosmic dust, we all dance to a mysterious tune, intoned in the distance by an invisible player.”
(*Note: destiny and destination come from the same Latin root destinare— ‘make firm, establish.’)
What the Ancients called life’s starting line, pregnant with each destination (finish line) and destiny(running race), genetics calls the fertilized egg, pregnant with all our genetic info.
Einstein extended such insight to help cope with the loss of his best friend. Spacetime assumes the illusion of time, after all.
In short, so far as determinism and destiny both inherently meanevents that will necessarily happen to someone in the future, it’s no wonder Einstein was convinced:
My work’s popular in academia (biology, psychology, logic, etc) + Signed to the same agency as Eckhart Tolle = I’m an ordinary guy serving an extraordinary God.
The Nordic countries — Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and Finland — are frequently cited in discussions on socialism, but this representation is a significant misinterpretation of their actual economic and social systems. This extensive exploration aims to dissect the Nordic model in-depth, revealing its capitalist core, sophisticated use of tax revenues, and the nuanced reasons behind its common mislabeling as socialism.
Repeatedly, the leaders of Nordic nations have declared their commitment to capitalism and a free-market economy, distancing themselves from socialism. Despite these clear statements, there continues to be a recurring trend where individuals incorrectly label these countries as examples of socialist models. This persistent mislabeling overlooks the explicit economic stances these countries have taken, leading to a distorted understanding of their actual economic systems.
The best you can do is call it a Social Democracy based on Capitalism.
In contemporary discourse, the terms ‘social welfare’ and ‘socialism’ are often intermingled, leading to a pervasive misunderstanding of their distinct natures. I want to delineate these concepts with precision, underpinning the argument with factual and theoretical evidence.
Social welfare refers to a system where the government undertakes the responsibility to provide certain basic services and support to its citizens. This includes initiatives like healthcare, education, unemployment benefits, and public housing. The primary objective of social welfare is to enhance the living standards of individuals, particularly those in need, thereby ensuring a baseline of equality in access to essential services.
On the other hand, socialism is an economic and political ideology that advocates for the ownership and regulation of the means of production by the community as a whole. In its purest form, socialism seeks to redistribute wealth more equally among the population, often through more radical means than social welfare policies. The focus of socialism extends beyond providing basic services to a complete restructuring of the economic system to eliminate private ownership of capital.
The crucial distinction lies in the approach and scope. Social welfare does not necessitate a fundamental change in economic structures or the abolition of private property. Instead, it operates within the existing capitalist framework, using mechanisms like taxation to fund services and benefits. Socialism, conversely, involves a comprehensive overhaul of the economic system towards collective ownership.
Understanding this distinction is vital for informed discourse on public policy. While social welfare seeks to mitigate the inequalities inherent in a capitalist system, socialism proposes a different economic system altogether. Misconstruing these concepts not only leads to semantic confusion but also hinders constructive policy discussions.
Socialism vs Communism
Communism represents the most extreme form of socialism, characterized by a complete elimination of class distinctions and the absence of private ownership. In this system, the society collectively owns all property and resources, aiming for a classless societal structure.
Socialism, while also emphasizing collective ownership, permits some small degree of private ownership. In a socialist system, the state predominantly controls industries, services, and properties, yet class structures still exist.
The fundamental distinction between these two ideologies and Capitalism is that Socialism (hence by extension Communism) do not support a free-market economy where the majority of property, services, and industries are privately owned.
A Brief History
The Nordic model, as we understand it today, evolved over several decades, primarily in the post-World War II era. Its development can be traced back to the late 1930s and early 1940s, with significant advancements occurring during the 1950s and 1960s. The model is characterized by its unique combination of a comprehensive welfare state and a capitalist market economy, and its development was influenced by various social, political, and economic factors unique to the Nordic countries (Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland, and Iceland).
Key Historical Milestones:
1930s-1940s: Foundations of the Welfare State
In the 1930s, the Nordic countries began developing social policies that laid the groundwork for their future welfare states. This period saw the introduction of various social insurance schemes and labor market policies.
During and after World War II, there was a strong push towards social solidarity and economic stability, which accelerated the development of welfare policies.
1950s-1960s: Expansion of Welfare Programs
The post-war economic boom in Europe provided the necessary resources for the expansion of social welfare programs.
In the 1950s and 1960s, Nordic governments, many led by social-democratic parties, implemented policies such as universal healthcare, free education, and extensive social security systems.
1970s: Maturation of the Welfare State
By the 1970s, the Nordic model had matured, with a comprehensive set of welfare programs firmly in place. This period also saw increased government intervention in the economy and high levels of taxation to fund the welfare state.
1980s-1990s: Economic Challenges and Reforms
In the 1980s and 1990s, the Nordic countries faced economic challenges, including inflation, rising unemployment, and fiscal deficits. These challenges prompted a series of reforms to make the welfare state more sustainable, including deregulation, privatization, and welfare reform.
21st Century: Continued Evolution
In the 21st century, the Nordic model has continued to evolve, balancing welfare policies with economic competitiveness. The countries have focused on maintaining high levels of labor force participation, innovation, and adapting to globalization.
Understanding the Nordic Capitalist Foundation
Now coming to the Nordic Model, beneath the veneer of extensive social programs lies a dynamic capitalist economy, characterized by private ownership, open markets, and a competitive global stance.
Private Sector Dominance: The Nordic countries are powerhouses of private enterprise. Volvo and Ericsson from Sweden, Nokia from Finland, and Maersk from Denmark exemplify their global corporate success, underscoring the capitalist nature of these economies.
Innovation and Global Market Integration: These nations are not isolated socialist paradises but are deeply integrated into the global economy. They actively participate in international trade and foster environments conducive to technological innovation and entrepreneurship. The rise of globally competitive startups in these regions, such as Spotify and Rovio Entertainment, underscores this point.
The Welfare State and Taxation
The extensive social welfare programs in Nordic countries are often seen as hallmarks of socialism. However, they function within a fundamentally capitalist framework.
Tax Revenue Allocation: High tax rates support a range of public services. These include not just healthcare and education but also substantial investments in public infrastructure, research and development, and social security systems. The effective use of these funds reflects a sophisticated approach to public finance that prioritizes societal well-being alongside economic growth.
A Productive Welfare State: Unlike the redistributive goal of socialism, the Nordic welfare state is designed to enhance productivity. For example, Finland’s focus on high-quality education creates a skilled workforce, driving innovation and economic competitiveness.
The Nordic governments demonstrate how strategic state intervention can coexist with and even enhance a capitalist economy.
Balancing the Market with Social Needs: While the market drives economic activity, the government intervenes to correct market failures and ensure social welfare. This includes regulations to promote fair competition and prevent monopolies, unlike socialist economies where the state often controls key industries.
Sustainable Development: Environmental policies in these countries are a blend of regulatory frameworks and market-based solutions. For instance, Norway’s investment in electric vehicle infrastructure and Sweden’s carbon taxing system showcase how environmental concerns are addressed within a capitalist framework.
Demystifying the Socialist Misconception
The misinterpretation of the Nordic model as socialist stems from a superficial analysis of its welfare policies.
Economic Freedom: Despite their extensive welfare systems, these countries rank high in economic freedom indices, a feature inconsistent with socialist economies. This includes factors like business freedom, investment freedom, and property rights.
Democratic Values and Individual Rights: In contrast to many socialist regimes, Nordic countries are characterized by their strong commitment to democracy, individual rights, and freedom of expression.
Aging and Fertility Challenges
The aging population and drop in fertility in Nordic countries is presenting significant challenges to their welfare model. As the population grows older, there’s an increased demand for healthcare and elderly care services, leading to rising costs and placing additional strain on healthcare systems.
Pension systems are also under pressure, with concerns about their sustainability due to the longer support required for an expanding elderly demographic. This demographic shift is leading to potential labor market shortages, as the working-age population decreases. In turn, this could result in slower economic growth, impacting the ability to generate sufficient tax revenues to fund welfare programs.
To address labor shortages, immigration is seen as a potential solution, although it comes with integration challenges. Additionally, technological advancements and policy adaptations are being considered to manage these issues, such as encouraging older workers to remain in the workforce longer and utilizing digital healthcare solutions. The Nordic model, famed for its balance of welfare and economic efficiency, is thus facing a crucial test in adapting to these demographic changes.
Why the Nordic Model May Face Challenges in Other Geographies?
In addition to cultural, economic, and political factors, the GINI Index, income gap, and natural resources also play significant roles in determining the feasibility of the Nordic model in other geographies.
GINI Index and Income Inequality
Low Income Inequality in Nordic Countries: The Nordic countries have some of the lowest GINI index scores in the world, indicating low income inequality. This is a result of their extensive production enhancement policies and welfare programs. (they started way back).
Challenges in High Inequality Regions: In countries with high income inequality, implementing the Nordic model would require massive redistribution, which could be politically and socially challenging. High GINI index scores often reflect deeper systemic economic issues that can’t be addressed simply by adopting another region’s policies.
Natural Resources and Wealth Distribution
Resource Wealth in Nordic Countries: Some Nordic countries, like Norway, have significant natural resources, such as oil, which have been effectively managed and used to fund their welfare programs. The state’s control over these resources and the wealth generated from them is a unique aspect of their economic model.
Varied Resource Distribution Globally: Other countries may not have the same level of natural resources or may have already allocated resource revenues differently. Additionally, managing resource wealth effectively and equitably, avoiding the ‘resource curse’, requires strong, transparent institutions, which may not be present in all countries.
Economic Scale and Scope
Small, Advanced Economies: The Nordic economies are relatively small and highly advanced, allowing for efficient administration of welfare programs and economic policies.
Scaling and Complexity in Larger Economies: Larger economies may face complexities in scaling such policies, and countries at different stages of economic development might struggle to generate sufficient wealth to redistribute.
Taxation and Public Spending
Efficient Tax Systems: The success of the Nordic model is partly due to efficient tax systems and a high level of public trust in government spending. Citizens see tangible benefits from their tax contributions, reinforcing the social contract.
Taxation Issues in Other Contexts: In countries where tax evasion is widespread or where public spending is inefficient or corrupt, increasing taxation to Nordic levels could be both impractical and unpopular.
Historical and Institutional Context
Unique Institutional Development: The development of Nordic institutions over decades, underpinned by social trust and democratic norms, has been crucial for their model’s success.
Diverse Historical Trajectories: Other countries with different historical and institutional backgrounds may not have the requisite foundation for a similar model.
The Nordic model represents a unique blend of free-market capitalism and an extensive welfare state. This model defies the traditional dichotomies of socialism and capitalism, offering a third way that combines economic efficiency with social equity. It’s a testament to the potential of a well-regulated capitalist economy to generate wealth while ensuring broad-based societal well-being.
Invitation for Extended Discourse
This in-depth exploration opens the floor for further discussion.
How can elements of the Nordic model be adapted to other cultural and economic contexts?
What lessons can emerging economies draw from this model?
I encourage readers to share their perspectives and engage in a dialogue about applying the principles of the Nordic model to address global economic challenges.
Consciousness isn’t a “hard problem”, as the philosopher David Chalmers famously described it (1996). It’s an unsolvable one. Any explanation we come up with for it, from a theological one to a materialist one, begs questions we simply can’t answer.
If we offer God or some other “supernatural” source as the answer, we must then explain where the consciousness for this apparently intelligent creator came from. Simply saying this source is eternal is just another way of saying consciousness always existed. In other words, it’s just an inherent part of the universe, which is ultimately no different than suggesting it’s an inherent quality of matter itself (a position I will come to shortly).
As for consciousness emerging from matter, this won’t do either. By what means does unconscious matter, if put together just so and in sufficient quantities, suddenly start acting consciously? If a single atom, molecule or cell is by itself unconscious, why should the sum of all this unconscious stuff under any circumstance start producing consciousness?
If we assert that consciousness is, at least in principle, a solvable problem, we must first articulate what would constitute evidence that our explanation is the right one. For example, a materialist contending that the brain produces consciousness must first offer a testable hypothesis that could explain what it is about a brain structured like ours that leads it to produce consciousness.
Likewise, anyone arguing the brain acts as a kind of receiver of consciousness from elsewhere, be it some sort of Cartesian homunculus or somewhere else, must first identify this consciousness ‘receiver’ and also provide us with a means of verifying its function scientifically.
In neither case does it do any good to point out that braindead people show no signs of consciousness or that those suffering from some kind of brain damage exhibit altered states of it. Either side in the debate can reasonably respond that either the generator or the receiver of consciousness has simply been knocked out or damaged.
The two options provided above — either the brain produces consciousness or facilitates its receipt from elsewhere — are commonly described as materialism (or physicalism) and dualism respectively. While the materialists contend that, as the philosopher Daniel Dennett put it in his audaciously entitled book Consciousness Explained (1991), “…there is only one sort of stuff, namely matter — the physical stuff of physics, chemistry, and physiology — and the mind is somehow nothing but a physical phenomenon”, the dualists contend that the mind is “distinct…from the brain, composed not of ordinary matter but of some other, special kind of stuff.”
Dennett falls within the materialist camp. But in pitting materialism against dualism, he overlooks a third possibility that allows consciousness to remain a physical phenomenon. Consciousness could simply be an inherent quality of matter. This third option is no more provable or disprovable than the strong materialist hypothesis or the dualist view that, at least in its purest form, relies on something like a nonmaterial soul somehow pulling the strings. Nonetheless, it is a possibility that avoids their challenges and inconsistencies. It is, in other words, more coherent.
If consciousness is a property of matter, then we would expect sufficiently complex beings to experience it and plainly manifest it, just as humans and other creatures clearly do. There would be no need to look for a source of consciousness or to fall back upon vague concepts like emergence which, upon close examination, lack any explanatory power. Nor would we need to separate the mind and the brain as dualism demands. Brains would simply be a collection of matter that exhibits the material world’s inherent consciousness.
Materialists like Daniel Dennett have referred to dualism as “unscientific” and have cited this shortcoming as “its most disqualifying feature.” Undoubtedly, any attempt to find an alternative to dualism that fails to accept the premise that consciousness can be explained scientifically, and will be sooner or later, would likewise receive the same criticism even if it does treat consciousness as an intrinsic characteristic of the material world.
The problem materialists like Dennett have on their hands is that there isn’t a scientific way to determine the source of consciousness, be it physical or otherwise. As was pointed out above, brain death and brain damage can both be expected to have consequences for awareness whether the brain is the source or is the receiver of signals from a soul or a radio transmitter built by aliens in outer space. Therefore, simply pointing to correlations between physical changes in the brain and changes in our consciousness proves nothing. Materialists may have come a long way with regard to their understanding of the brain’s anatomy, but they are no closer to finding anything in the brain that is, either by itself or collectively, an obvious and testable source for consciousness. Such structures are as elusive as they have ever been.
While CT scanners and other devices can measure brain activity under any number of circumstances, even to the point of showing us which parts of the brain light up when asked certain questions, seeing images flashed on a screen or listening to music, none of this information is inconsistent with either the dualist or materialist theories of consciousness. Nor, might I add, is it inconsistent with the theory that consciousness is an inherent quality of matter and has been from the start. Why, under any of these views of consciousness, should we expect any regions of the brain to light up other than the ones that do?
In his book, Beyond Conceptual Dualism: Ontology of Consciousness, Mental Causation, and Holism in John R. Searle’s Philosophy of Mind (2008), Giuseppe Vicari describes the problem of relying on things like brain scans to prop up the traditional materialist view that matter, when organized in a particular way, somehow generates consciousness: “Every process has a physical realization as its causal basis. This is true for pirouettes and mental states, as we can see from studies made with the imaging techniques and from the studies on brain damage. But this does not mean that we can identify mental processes with their neural causal basis.” (Emphasis added)
One reason imaging techniques that show particular patterns of brain activity (or lack thereof) under certain conditions cannot be taken as evidence they cause the conditions is, as the philosopher John Searle points out, some cause-and-effect relationships are simultaneous as opposed to “discrete events ordered in time.” Vicari quotes Searle at length on this point:
In lots of cases of causation, the cause is simultaneous with the effect. Look at the objects around you and notice that they are exerting pressure on the floor of the room you are in. What is the causal explanation of this pressure? It is caused by the force of gravity. But the force of gravity is not a separate event… Furthermore, there are lots of cases of simultaneous causation that are, so to speak, bottom-up, in the sense that lower-level microphenomena cause higher-level macrofeatures. Again, look at the objects around you. The table supports books. The fact that the table supports books is causally explained by the behavior of the molecules. (Searle, 2004) (Emphasis added)
Just as “the force of gravity is not a separate event” in Searle’s example above, it is entirely possible that consciousness is not a separate event. If this is so, it makes no more sense to say that brains cause consciousness than it does to say that the physical pressure objects like furniture exert on the floor cause gravity. Gravity would exist as a force of nature whether the furniture was there or not. The furniture simply manifests the existence of gravity by sticking to the ground and putting a bit of pressure on the floor as it does so.
Though the analogy is not perfect, as no analogy between something as simple or direct as furniture and gravity could be when compared to something as complex as brains and consciousness, this kind of simultaneous interaction is what the psychiatrist and philosopher Iain McGilchrist argues for when he contends that brains permit consciousness as opposed to generating or receiving it:
I suggest that the function of the brain is to create by permission, in other words by acting as a kind of filter. This includes the idea of transmission but adds a further element. Consciousness is sculpted: by saying ‘no’ to some things it enables others to stand forward into being, as Michaelangelo’s hand caused his David to come into being by a process of discarding stone from the formless block and allowing other stone to remain. (McGilchrist, 2021)
Image created by the author.
The most salient challenge to the notion that consciousness is an intrinsic quality of matter is that, from our perspective, most of the material universe doesn’t exhibit consciousness. It neither has a brain that can filter it nor generate it. From the tiniest particle to the largest stars, we can see no behaviors that we typically associate with awareness, let alone agency. Atoms do what atoms do and our sun does what it does and has done for billions of years. What variations we can detect follow more or less set patterns and deviations from the norm that are not outside the realm of possibility under the laws of physics as we understand them. While there may, from time-to-time, be random variations that surprise us, random variation is not an indication of either awareness or intentionality.
I was reminded of this a couple of years ago during a discussion I was having with a friend on this topic. As a trained geologist and ardent materialist, my friend was, to say the least, dismissive of any notion that consciousness might be an inherent quality of matter. To make his point, he kicked a large rock resting on the ground in front of him and, noting the lack of reaction from the rock, said “See, no consciousness.”
Unfortunately, demonstrations like these only show that if rocks experience consciousness, it is not in a form that humans can even remotely relate to. McGilchrist states that he too has seen rhetorical rocks kicked in an attempt to demonstrate inanimate matter cannot possibly have any access to consciousness. “Sometimes, I am asked, ‘Surely you can’t think a mountain has awareness?’ I feel like replying, ‘but how would you expect a mountain to behave if it did have awareness? Mow the lawn, drink a beer and go to Sainsbury’s?” (2021)
That materialists who are often quick to charge other researchers with anthropocentrism would expect consciousness to only exist in a form that humans could detect and appreciate is, to say the least, ironic. That said, McGilchrist’s point is a valid and important one. He does not claim that there is proof that consciousness is a property of matter, including stuff that we consider inanimate. He is simply pointing out that it is at least as plausible as the available alternative explanations and that, if true, we shouldn’t expect our own filters (brains) to always enable us to see examples of it. Why would it?
It is common knowledge that humans can’t hear dog whistles or smell nearly as well as man’s best friend. Undoubtedly, these differences between humans and canines have a meaningful impact on how each perceives and interacts with the world. If we allow ourselves to believe, even if only for the sake of argument, that consciousness is a feature of the material world, how much different must any conscious experience be for things that operate on vastly different timescales and with radically different physical structures?
The point here is not that consciousness is definitely associated with physicality the way gravity is associated with mass. Though this view is at least as consistent as any other theory of consciousness (I would argue more), it is no more or less provable than other theories. As the 20th century mathematician Kurt Gödel demonstrated mathematically, it is possible for something to be both true and unprovable.
Regardless, our understanding of consciousness and ability to imagine how it might be experienced by others is limited by our own filtered experience of it. If we have difficulty imagining what it is like to be a bat, to use the philosopher Thomas Nagel’s famous example (1974), how much more difficult is it to imagine what it might be like to be a rock or a tree? It is precisely because the whole story of consciousness can’t be determined that we can find value in considering and wrestling with alternative explanations for its existence.
REFERENCES
Chalmers, D. J. 1996. The Conscious Mind: In Search of a Fundamental Theory, New York: Oxford University Press.
Dennett, D. C. (1991). Consciousness explained. (P. Weiner, Illustrator). Little, Brown and Co.
McGilchrist, I. (2021). The Matter With Things: Our Brains, Our Delusions, and the Unmaking of the World (Vol. 2). London: Perspectiva Press.
Nagel, T. (1974). What Is It Like to Be a Bat. Philosophical Review, 83, 435–450.
Vicari, G. (2008). Beyond conceptual dualism: ontology of consciousness, mental causation, and holism in John R. Searle’s philosophy of mind (Vol. 196). Rodopi.
M.A. in Environment and Management and undergraduate degrees in Anthropology & Environmental Studies. Living in Moab, Utah. A generalist, not a specialist.
Elliot Kukla is a rabbi who provides spiritual care to those who are grieving, dying, ill or disabled. He is working on a book about the power of rest in a time of planetary crisis.
I’m not a detail-oriented person. My clothes are usually rumpled; when I write, I rarely dot every i or cross each t (either literally or metaphorically). But when I am officiating at a funeral, I meticulously study each letter of the name of the person who died — especially when I’m leading a memorial service for a transgender or nonbinary person. Our names are so often disrespected in life, let alone death.
I’m transgender and nonbinary, and as a rabbi I’ve offered bereavement spiritual care for the past 17 years. In recent years, I’ve accompanied mourners through the losses of many more very young trans people than in the past. Each of those funerals was heartbreaking, but taken together, they were terrifying. And I know there will be a lot more deaths like these, unless something changes.
Over the past few years there have been countless stories in the news of trans and nonbinary young people’s deaths by suicide. In San Diego, a 14-year-old, Kyler Prescott, died after being repeatedly misgendered by hospital staff members in the psychiatric unit that was supposed to be helping him. Leelah Alcorn, a 16-year-old transgender girl from Ohio, was rejected by her parents after coming out. In her online suicide note she wrote, “The only way I will rest in peace is if one day transgender people aren’t treated the way I was.”
More than half of young people in the United States who are transgender and nonbinary seriously considered suicide in the past year, according to a survey conducted by the Trevor Project, a suicide prevention organization for L.G.B.T.Q. youth. This figure is staggering, but the Trevor Project’s data also points to what can help. The same 2022 survey found that trans and nonbinary youth who report having their pronouns respected by all or most of the people in their life attempted suicide at half the rate of those who didn’t. And a 2019 Trevor Project survey found that transgender and nonbinary young people who live with even one accepting adult were 40 percent less likely to report a suicide attempt in the previous year.
A 2021 study published by The Journal of Adolescent Health found that for people younger than 18, receiving gender-affirming hormone therapy was associated with nearly 40 percent lower odds of having had a suicide attempt in the previous year. It’s not being transgender or nonbinary that kills young people; it’s the shunning, lack of acceptance and transphobia they encounter in the struggle to be who they truly are.
This year, more than 450 bills have been introduced in 44 states, according to the Trans Legislation Tracker, that make it harder for transgender and nonbinary youth to get the support, respect and health care they need to survive.
Within days of each other, Mississippi and Tennessee enacted bans on gender-affirming health care for young people. Arizona moved forward one bill that would ban from schools any books that promote “gender or pronouns” and another that would prohibit teachers from using pronouns for young people that differ from their biological sex, without a parent’s written consent. A bill in Florida could allow a parent to remove children from a supportive home with their custodial parent and take them across state lines to keep them from receiving gender-affirming health care — even if those children are simply “at risk” of getting that care.
This legislative attack is often framed as a battle between traditional religious values and modern ideas about gender. But we are real people, not ideas, and we have always existed, including within age-old religions. In my own tradition, Judaism, our most sacred texts reflect a multiplicity of gender. This part of Judaism has mostly been obscured by the modern binary world until very recently.
There are four genders beyond male or female that appear in ancient Jewish holy texts hundreds of times. They are considered during discussions about childbirth, marriage, inheritance, holidays, ritual leadership and much more. We were always hiding in plain sight, but recently the research of Jewish studies scholars like Max Strassfeld has demonstrated how nonbinary gender is central to understanding Jewish law and literature as a whole.
When a child was born in the ancient Jewish world it could be designated as a boy, a girl, a “tumtum” (who is neither clearly male nor female), or an “androgynos” (who has both male and female characteristics) based on physical features. There are two more gender designations that form later in life. The “aylonit” is considered female at birth, but develops in an atypical direction. The “saris” is designated male at birth, but later becomes a eunuch.
There is not an exact equivalence between these ancient categories and modern gender identities. Some of these designations are based on biology, some on a person’s role in society. But they show us that people who are more than binary have always been recognized by my religion. We are not a fad.
In fact, Judaism sees us as so ancient that according to one fifth-century interpretation of the Bible, the very first human being, Adam, was actually an androgynos. This explains why Genesis says, “And God created humankind in the divine image, creating it in the image of God,” referring to Adam, the first person, with a singular pronoun. But then, the very same verse says: “creating them male and female.” (1:27). “Them,” in this ancient interpretation, also refers to Adam: a single person who is both male and female. In other words, in this reading of the creation story, the first human being is described with a singular “they” pronoun to express the multiplicity of their gender.
In the Mishna, the oldest and most authoritative source of Jewish legal theory, composed in the second century, we learn that anyone who kills or harms an androgynos (either accidentally or on purpose) is subject to the exact same ramifications as someone who hurts a man or woman. That chapter ends with a conversation about whether the androgynos is more like men or women. One of the sages, Rabbi Yossi, suggests that “he is a created being of her own.”
This phrase plays with the gender in Hebrew grammar to poetically express the complexity of the androgynos’s gender. The first time I learned this text, I was with my study partner, a transgender rabbi named Reuben Zellman. “Rabbi Yossi is right,” he said, “but not just about us. Everyone is a created being of their own.”
I have never forgotten this insight. Trans people, and especially trans young people, make human uniqueness more visible for everyone. We are all individuals who have distinctive outlooks, particular health care needs and shifting desires for self-expression, and we grow in unexpected directions as we age. Trans liberation is a gift to everyone, because it expands the categories for what it means to be human.
The growing wave of anti-trans bills in the United States represents not just a trans crisis, but a humanitarian crisis. History has shown countless times that when a government limits one group’s legal rights, it will eventually do the same to other groups.
I might be accused of having a “trans agenda.” I do. And it’s the same as my religious and my human agenda. I want trans kids, and all young people, to survive.
Elliot Kukla is a rabbi who provides spiritual care to those who are grieving, dying, ill or disabled. He is working on a book about grief in a time of planetary crisis.
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A version of this article appears in print on March 19, 2023, Section SR, Page 12 of the New York edition with the headline: ‘Everyone Is a Created Being of Their Own’. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe
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