Thoughts of an Eaten Sun

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Kyle Tolle reading ‘The Sin of Two Extremes’

The universe is a complex place and humans spend a great deal of time and energy trying to understand it. Removing “unnecessary” intricacy and abstraction are two methods that let us live without getting swamped in the details. If you thought of how many billions and billions of photons hit your retina every millisecond and how your brain processes all those signals, you’d be inundated with information and soon suffer paralysis as all your faculties focused on the minutia. Luckily, our bodies and brains have evolved to let us get the information we really want; whether or not a bear is about to maul our pack-mule Teddy.

College professors are particularly in favor of abstraction. Where do you think all the models of organizational behavior, object oriented analysis, physical systems and human thought come from? They come from taking something really complex, stripping it down to bare bones, and hoping we don’t lose a few bones on the way to the museum. I really am feeling these crummy analogies today!  A few quarters ago I took an organizational behavior class and the professor presented all sorts of models.  The sheer number of models for motivation alone show  there is considerable work to be done. One model did not contradict the others, instead it complemented them. If ever a single model can be had, it will be an amalgamation of all the current, distinct models.

One of the greatest sins of knowledge is boiling down a complex system too far.  The actions humans undertake are not simply good or evil. For the sake of some discussions, it is easier to idealize the world and say that there are only two sides, but once we move out of fairy-tale land, we hit hard times. “Well, that person stole food, but it was for his starving family.” Unless you’re some authoritarian bastard or some anarchistic half-wit, you’d probably agree there is a grey area. (If you are an authoritarian bastard or a anarchistic half-wit, please, keep reading; maybe you’ll learn why you’re dumb!)

Instead of breaking all ideas, problem domains or the universe into two and only two extremes, let’s consider things to be on a continuum.  The person earlier had good intentions but accomplished them in a not so good way. If you consider the person solely evil, you’re just being harsh; if you consider the person solely good, you’re being overly lenient. Even our judicial system (as woefully twisted as it may be) recognizes a gradient in crimes. Treating all convicted criminals like murderers wouldn’t accomplish much, nor would treating them all like juvenile delinquents.

Upon reflection, I noticed that in the carnivore post I said that we need to determine whether animals are like robots or humans.  I recognize this was a huge mistake. It is not fair to say that animals are either robotic or humanistic. Labeling animals one of two ways is really nice and convenient, but it’s a bad idea because, for the most part, it hinders our thinking. A cricket’s mental capacity is obviously different from a dolphin’s and would fall on the robot-human gradient in a different place.

Most humans operate under the assumption that we’re the only beings around that are, as we’d say, human. An interesting question is, “What makes humans intrinsically different from any other animal?” Can we definitively say? I need to look into this topic, because I’m sure greater minds have pondered this. Humans share some likenesses to robots, and vice-versa.  Can we comprehend a being which would surpass us on our end of the “human” scale? That’s doubtful. Is it possible that something could surpass us in reality? It’s possible. Is it probable? I can’t even hazard a guess.

There are cases when a dichotomy is the correct division.  There are either two pennies here, are there are not two pennies here. True or false.  But then again, maybe the answer is conditional or is semantically determined, in which case a continuum would more accurately express reality.  Even “The Sin of Two Extremes” is a case of two extremes. I call the division of domains into two extremes a sin, whereas the division of domains into other than two extremes is not a sin. Sin and not a sin. Perhaps I can escape the quandary by saying that on a sin ladder it would get a 9.5. See, I even accommodate other-than-integer numbers and all! Whew, crisis averted.

If, in the future, I mistakenly repeat this terrocious (combination of terrible and attrocious) thought-blunder, don’t hesitate to remind me (kindly; my ego is fragile) via comments at the bottom.  I am also interested in hearing your thoughts. In what way to do commonly commit the sin of two extremes?  Maybe you feel uggs are pure evil and the person wearing them is consequently pure evil? Perhaps you feel cyclists are by default retarded? I’ll stop here because I don’t want to take the fun of introspection away! I do want to hear what you have to say though; I thrive on discussion! Please post your comments on here as oppposed to twitter, facebook or email, because they’ll be better appreciated here in the context of all the other comments!

Kyle Tolle Personal extremes, humanity, knowledge, life, mistakes, robots, sin, thought

Oh, how easy it is to get absorbed in our lives and not see anything else. It is far too easy to get caught up and only just look for a solution to our particular, one-time problem, say meeting a person we find difficult to tolerate.  We come up with a throw-away fix that works for us this time.  But what about when we encounter a similar problem again later, say meeting another annoying person? We probably stumble through the situation again, because we haven’t formed any general-purpose plan of attack.

Take this a step further and we consequently see so much of life is re-living, re-hashing and re-doing everything so many billions of people have done before us. People have struggled with morality, weak economies, and cross-country moves before.  Not only have others struggled with it, some have found good ways of thinking about these things.  What I want to do instead of reasoning through life focused on personal, specific problems is to take issues, abstract and generalize them enough to apply to humanity as a whole.

Lately, I have found it helpful to step back a bit from my emotions, look at why I am feeling so, and getting a handle on patterns.  Sounds a bit robotic but getting to know why and how you think isn’t a bad thing. I’ m also taking steps to think more generally when I encounter a problem. Not only do I think of how I can handle the situation, but how people in general might.  I want to harness knowledge, make some sort of core, so people of today and the future can use others’ experiences to get through things and spend their time wrestling all the new issues they will face.

Knowledge does come in two forms though: Explicit and tacit. Explicit knowledge is that which can be stored and transferred easily, like historical facts.  Tacit knowledge is the sort you have to pick up by experience, like how to ride a bike. And even though you have to actually ride a bike to pick up that muscle memory, that’s not to say there isn’t a way to transfer some knowledge on how to go about it. So even for things like dealing with your short temper, there could be a how-to or some guidelines to follow.

I think of physics as a good example. Physics students have to spend some time reinventing the wheel, in order to see how the basics work. But they don’t dwell deeply on the proofs or just how long a time it took for others to come to these conclusions. They learn these things, and quickly move on to more challenging ideas.  Soon enough, they stand on the shoulders of giants and come face-to-face with unsolved problems. Even though they have not built the foundation themselves, they can surely expand upon it.  And this is exactly what I want to do with more general life-knowledge: generalize, codify and retain it. There will be some bit of re-inventing the wheel, but it should be a small amount.

This does beg the question of whether absolute truth exists. I’m sure we could argue semantics all night and day for the rest of all ever, so I will punt and say that regardless of whether “absolute” truth exists, there are some things people should do in certain situations. There is a lot of personality that goes in to how a person thinks, copes and reasons, but the personality sits on top of a base. This base human is what I want to get at.

This essentially highlights the perspective I will hold as I write future posts. I plan to explore my personality, thoughts and life and see how I can generalize the things I come across. I hope to gain some insight and also hear what others have to say about their introspection. One of my life’s goals is to understand another person, but I must have a good grasp on myself first. I really welcome everyone to try this approach. Let’s put these basic, mundane pieces of human life down so others don’t have to slog through them like so many people before.

Listen to these Readings

Kyle Tolle reading ‘Lens Through Which I Look’

Kyle Tolle reading ‘Lens Through Which I Look’ in one take

Kyle Tolle reading ‘Lens Through Which I Look’ in monotone

Kyle Tolle Personal humanity, knowledge, thinking