The shapes created by fractal geometry are infinitely repeating shapes that compose a whole that look just like any part of that whole. Zoom in on any part of a fractal shape and that small part looks just like the larger shape. Zoom in on part of that part, and it too looks like the larger shapes, and so on into infinity.
It is thought that nature works using fractal geometry, where investigation of any part will reveal insight into the larger whole. With this in mind, I have been struck by night time flights over metropolitan areas and how the layout of the lights look like galaxies in the abstract. With the terrestrial real estate between metropolitan areas invisible in the dark, the light from cities could easily be mistaken for a trip through the universe.
The composite images of the world at night, with population centers glowing and tendrils of light connecting them composed of smaller cities, remind me of maps of galaxy clusters and universal distributions of matter. These maps in turn remind me of maps of neural connections in the brain. The small is the big is the small again; the pieces look just like the whole.
Saturday, December 8, 2012
Sunday, November 25, 2012
On "civilization"
After the fall of the Roman Empire came a period history refers to as The Dark Ages. The area and people formerly under the yoke of Rome dissolved into smaller organizational units, while the technological achievements of the empire decayed; roads, aqueducts, etc that allowed Roman society and culture to flourish. The label of this period of dissolution betrays some paradigms--calling it "dark" implies that what came before was light; that the loss of an oppressive centralized plutocracy was bad, while "local control" was somehow a step backward culturally or technologically. History seems to have the opinion that the period beyond Roman rule in Europe was a loss of civilization, a return or regression to barbarism.
This makes me wonder what "civilization" as an historic label is exactly. The period following the gradual decline (rather than the historically preferred word "fall") of Rome is rather marked by a realignment of political structures. The strong, centralized political force of the Emperor and aristocratic plutocracy run from a single European city dissolved into something almost tribal in nature. Through competition for resorces these many parts congealed into the kingdoms that would dominate the Middle Ages, but did so largely along the cultural lines that Rome was supposed to have erased. These kingdoms, in turn, looked geographically similar to the nation-states of Europe today, even after several political experiments tried to forge smaller areas into larger political structures (the Holy Roman Empire, Napoleon, the first and second World Wars). The Roman labels of areas such as Gaul and Germania are largely France and Germany, with border areas fractured into smaller nation-states such as Belgium, Switzerland and Austria. It is these border areas that have been cause for conflict throughout European history.
So if the cultures of these areas have been able to remain largely distinct despite attempts to merge them into larger political structures over centuries, what civilization was Rome offering that didn't already exist, and what was lost when Rome declined?
The key may be in the political structures. While cultural norms were maintained within regions controlled by the Roman Empire, Rome imposed political norms on conquered territory. What are these political norms? A standardization of political structures. This standardization of political structures allowed the dissemination of Rome's political will, but also of how "the state" provides for its citizens. This required Rome's standard answers; technological achievements, entertainment, judiciary, coinage, and so forth which influenced but did not, or could not, supplant cultural aspects and ties. At its core, the Roman system offered standardization. The period that followed Rome's influence was decidedly unstandardized, politically speaking, but not culturally. So what is "civilization?" Political standardization, simply put.
This raises the question about the many smaller political units that emerged as Europe found its own way; did these smaller units, almost tribal in nature, not have internal standardized political structures as well? And given this standardization, were they not civilization? Historians would argue they were not, due to paradigms about size and complexity of societies, but where the line is drawn to define what is big and complex versus small and simple is another arbitrary distinction. As I've demonstrated in many posts, arbitrary markers are signs that no marker exists at all, functionally
speaking.
At best, civilization is the ability to impose political standardization on a society, regardless of cultural distinctions, size, or complexity. At best. At worst, it is a meaningless label full of arbitrary distinctions that are meaningless in themselves, and does nothing to further our understanding of human organizations, past or present.
This makes me wonder what "civilization" as an historic label is exactly. The period following the gradual decline (rather than the historically preferred word "fall") of Rome is rather marked by a realignment of political structures. The strong, centralized political force of the Emperor and aristocratic plutocracy run from a single European city dissolved into something almost tribal in nature. Through competition for resorces these many parts congealed into the kingdoms that would dominate the Middle Ages, but did so largely along the cultural lines that Rome was supposed to have erased. These kingdoms, in turn, looked geographically similar to the nation-states of Europe today, even after several political experiments tried to forge smaller areas into larger political structures (the Holy Roman Empire, Napoleon, the first and second World Wars). The Roman labels of areas such as Gaul and Germania are largely France and Germany, with border areas fractured into smaller nation-states such as Belgium, Switzerland and Austria. It is these border areas that have been cause for conflict throughout European history.
So if the cultures of these areas have been able to remain largely distinct despite attempts to merge them into larger political structures over centuries, what civilization was Rome offering that didn't already exist, and what was lost when Rome declined?
The key may be in the political structures. While cultural norms were maintained within regions controlled by the Roman Empire, Rome imposed political norms on conquered territory. What are these political norms? A standardization of political structures. This standardization of political structures allowed the dissemination of Rome's political will, but also of how "the state" provides for its citizens. This required Rome's standard answers; technological achievements, entertainment, judiciary, coinage, and so forth which influenced but did not, or could not, supplant cultural aspects and ties. At its core, the Roman system offered standardization. The period that followed Rome's influence was decidedly unstandardized, politically speaking, but not culturally. So what is "civilization?" Political standardization, simply put.
This raises the question about the many smaller political units that emerged as Europe found its own way; did these smaller units, almost tribal in nature, not have internal standardized political structures as well? And given this standardization, were they not civilization? Historians would argue they were not, due to paradigms about size and complexity of societies, but where the line is drawn to define what is big and complex versus small and simple is another arbitrary distinction. As I've demonstrated in many posts, arbitrary markers are signs that no marker exists at all, functionally
speaking.
At best, civilization is the ability to impose political standardization on a society, regardless of cultural distinctions, size, or complexity. At best. At worst, it is a meaningless label full of arbitrary distinctions that are meaningless in themselves, and does nothing to further our understanding of human organizations, past or present.
Confirmation
I have written about the need to embrace complexity and the limitation of labels, and how so much of our world refuses to be bound in discrete categories but rather occurs as a spectrum, or a continuum. The December issues of Scientific American and Wired contain articles that support this contention. Wired demonstrates the problem of defining a species as needed to save it under the Endangered Species Act, while Scientific American writes about how the quantum world is not quantum (not discrete particles) but a continuum of wave action.
The Scientific American article author even uses my example of Pluto to make his point that nature is continuous and that where we draw distinctions in science is arbitrary. Some interesting highlights: if we break a "particle" into three component smaller pieces, was the original "particle" a discrete parent particle, or was it always those three smaller pieces? The author describes a particular fermion that if you could hold it and turn it 360 degrees would find it was something completely different. To get back to the original fermion, you would in fact have to turn it 720 degrees, meaning that the fermion doesnt exist in just 3 dimensional space as we define it.
The wired article describes efforts to save a small population of fish in an aquifer at the edge of Death Valley. Due to shrinking populations which have nothing to do with human activity, but rather environmental pressures (as one would expect of a fish that makes its home at the edge of Death Valley), the population has reached a point where genetic diversity is so small that mutations will doom the fish to extinction. The possibility of breeding the fish with larger populations of relatives from elsewhere would make that genetic line extinct, but save the notion of having fish in this particular aquifer. The idea that the offspring of the two different fish populations would be a hybrid is challenged by the fact that the two populations are more genetically similar than I am with a person from Kenya. Again, given the genetic similarity, the two populations may not actually be seperate species after all, in which case breeding them for the survival of one population isn't such a bad idea, but challenges their place on the Endangered Species List at all making saving them less a question of saving a species but rather preserving their location in this particular aquifer. In short, we dont have a good definition of what constitutes a species, but the old Linnean system of counting scales and fins is wholly insufficient given our understanding of genetics. And using genetics, which offer so many places to draw arbitrary lines as to be useless, demonstate the continuous nature of animal life from single cells to complex organisms such as ourselves.
Interesting!
The Scientific American article author even uses my example of Pluto to make his point that nature is continuous and that where we draw distinctions in science is arbitrary. Some interesting highlights: if we break a "particle" into three component smaller pieces, was the original "particle" a discrete parent particle, or was it always those three smaller pieces? The author describes a particular fermion that if you could hold it and turn it 360 degrees would find it was something completely different. To get back to the original fermion, you would in fact have to turn it 720 degrees, meaning that the fermion doesnt exist in just 3 dimensional space as we define it.
The wired article describes efforts to save a small population of fish in an aquifer at the edge of Death Valley. Due to shrinking populations which have nothing to do with human activity, but rather environmental pressures (as one would expect of a fish that makes its home at the edge of Death Valley), the population has reached a point where genetic diversity is so small that mutations will doom the fish to extinction. The possibility of breeding the fish with larger populations of relatives from elsewhere would make that genetic line extinct, but save the notion of having fish in this particular aquifer. The idea that the offspring of the two different fish populations would be a hybrid is challenged by the fact that the two populations are more genetically similar than I am with a person from Kenya. Again, given the genetic similarity, the two populations may not actually be seperate species after all, in which case breeding them for the survival of one population isn't such a bad idea, but challenges their place on the Endangered Species List at all making saving them less a question of saving a species but rather preserving their location in this particular aquifer. In short, we dont have a good definition of what constitutes a species, but the old Linnean system of counting scales and fins is wholly insufficient given our understanding of genetics. And using genetics, which offer so many places to draw arbitrary lines as to be useless, demonstate the continuous nature of animal life from single cells to complex organisms such as ourselves.
Interesting!
Sunday, November 4, 2012
Why Caligula may have been Rome's greatest Emperor
No doubt this idea deserves a lengthier discussion than I can provide here. Just based on a cursory read of Suetonius and a semester of Roman history in college, paired with a lifelong interest in modern politics, I think Caligula has suffered from a common problem; history is written by the winners. He sought early to endear himself to the political establishment, but turned on them and sought to destroy the power and control structures he came to regard as oppressive. That he was assassinated should make the fact that he was a threat to the establishment self-evident, but the victors were successfully able to spin his behavior as madness, cruelty, and wanton unprovoked violence. Caligula's image as crafted by those who hated him (and killed every member of his family, for good measure) is hardly helped by the crappy pornographic movie made to illustrate his reign in the 1970s.
If one reads Suetonius as a skeptic, realizing how modern political opponents portray each other in the worst possible light, Caligula takes on the color of a profound reformer. The historical record shows Caligula was his predecessor's plaything at any early age, and grew up in an environment where he was exposed to the worst of the Roman system and aristocratic oppression. At some point he was taken under the wing of Tiberius, as opposed to simply being his toy, who then showed young Caligula the political ropes. Upon the death of Tiberius, the Senate heaped titles and power on Caligula to ingratiate themselves with him. Caligula probably believed the leading citizens of Rome thought well of him and truly embraced him, given the arc of his childhood abuse, and he returned their generosity. Then he got sick.
No doubt without a chosen successor or heir, Caligula's family and political allies jostled for position while the rumors flew that he was near death. The extended illness would have allowed plots to rise and fall, contingency plans made and broken. When he unexpectedly recovered and took the lay of
the land, he saw the sycophants, political opportunists and power hungry for what they were. He may have even thought he'd been poisoned. He saw that greed was what motivated the leading elite, and was disgusted.
In response to the collapse of the illusion he lashed out. He made a political statement with the joke about appointing his horse Consul, he killed political enemies and took the source of their family power--inherited wealth. He took on the military by humiliating them at the English channel, he took on the temples and religious authorities. Yet the average Roman citizen had nothing to fear from him. he never pulled a poor person out of a crowd and had him killed just for pleasure; he instead often gave Romans large sums of money and held many entertaining and extravagant games to please them. He surrounded himself not with slaves with whom he could do as he wished, nor rich elites, but freed slaves, men and women he had liberated from bondage.
As the plots against him grew, he realized the only way he could be free to remake the political, economic and social structures of Rome would be to move the Capitol off the Italian peninsula. Alexandria, established as a center of knowledge in the ancient world by the Ptolemies, provided the answer; Roman Senators were forbidden by law to travel there, and the aristocratic elites would have to upset their political power structures and generations of tributes and favors to move there. It was not madness but necessity that drove Caligula to want to move the Capitol of the Empire to Egypt. It was less a symptom of Caligula's illness, more a sign of someone who wanted to destroy the establishment. This threat was a step too far, and Caligula was assassinated for it. And not just he but everyone else who could succeed him was killed, with the exception of one, who was named Emperor by the guard in a power grab in defiance of the aristocratic elites who plotted the attack. As rumors of his death spread, rather than joy in the streets history records average Romans turned out in droves and held vigil at Caligula's palace. This is not the sign of a man as hated by the public as he was by the aristocrats who profited from the inequities of the Roman system and were victims of his reign.
It was those aristocrats, and the puppet of the Praetorian Guard who succeeded him, who wrote the historical record of that era.
Tuesday, October 30, 2012
"Why do I need to know this?"
I remember asking this frequently in school, usually in yet another dreary math class in which I struggled mightily. It would be several years and a lifetime later that I could answer this question to my satisfaction. I never had a teacher answer it in such a way to make me knuckle down and accept the illogical hoop-jumping that is our system of public education.
Why go to school? Why further your education? Why continue to read and investigate on your own after you have left educational institutions? In short, because your life may depend on it someday. The answer to the title question is this--you never know what you'll need to know, so you should know as much as you can.
Before I drive the point home with a true life and death example, I have a fun story. I was working in a restaurant as a dishwasher, and we had several metal cylinders that held salad dressing which took up alot of space on our shelves. Since the base of the cylinders was narrower than the tops, I took to nestling them in each other to leave room for other things after I had washed them. Over time, the number of these nestled cylinders doubled, then tripled. Why the hell were they buying so many extras? I found out when I was told I would face a written reprimand if I continued to nestle the containers after washing them, because they could not be pulled apart in the morning. Management considered they were ruined because they had become fused together. They bought extras to make up for the ruined containers. I laughed when I was told this, because I understood exactly what was going on. Using my high school science classes, I knew the air between the cylinders was hot when I stacked them together and was expanded. As the air cooled through the night it created a vacuum of sorts as the volume of air shrank, drawing the cylinders together. To free the cylinders, I placed a stack on the stove and turned up the heat to re-expand the volume of air between them. With a pop the cylinders were freed, and my manager looked at me like I was a wizard. I was 16 years old.
Education, or rather knowing things regardless of the source of information, is like Batman's toolbelt. Batman is a normal person just like you and me, so he needs toys to get him out of sticky situations. He cannot fly away to safety like Superman, or zap threats with laser vision. Batman needs to carry everything he might need to use to get to safety, and what he will use will vary based on what he faces. He might need a zipline, or to rappel up a wall. He may face bullets or a knife, might even need to swim. Because he can't pause life to go retrieve what he needs, he must carry all of these different tools on his utility belt. Knowledge is that utility belt, every piece of information a different tool. The better equipped Batman is, the more likely he is to survive. But we aren't Batman are we?
Imagine a special forces soldier hot on the trail of an Iraqi army unit in the latest Gulf War. He and his squad have been looking for this unit to wipe them out and keep the push toward Baghdad from attack from the side (or flank). The unit has been difficult to locate, and lost in the desert this special forces soldier has to pee. Relieving himself against a hill, he notices the hill does not look natural. How does he know it doesn't look natural? In basic training he and another recruit talked at great length about geology. His friend showed him how nature piles up rocks and dirt to determine man-made versus nature made structures. It was idle chitchat at the time, a minor detail the two discussed on training in the woods, but now that information was coming back to the special forces soldier in the deserts of Iraq. He walks up the hill to investigate it just as an armed Iraqi soldier was walking up the other side, and the two engaged in hand to hand combat. Victorious, the special forces soldier radios his men, for he found the edge of the Iraqi military camp. Had he not realized the hill was man-made, he would have turned away just as the armed Iraqi crested his side of the hill, and probably been shot. The chance discussion of geologic processes in basic training saved the special forces soldier's life.
So no, we are not all Batman. We might be a 16 year-old dishwasher keeping his job, or we might be a special forces soldier peeing against the enemy's fortifications; the only thing we know for sure is we never know what we may need to know, so we should know as much as we can.
Why go to school? Why further your education? Why continue to read and investigate on your own after you have left educational institutions? In short, because your life may depend on it someday. The answer to the title question is this--you never know what you'll need to know, so you should know as much as you can.
Before I drive the point home with a true life and death example, I have a fun story. I was working in a restaurant as a dishwasher, and we had several metal cylinders that held salad dressing which took up alot of space on our shelves. Since the base of the cylinders was narrower than the tops, I took to nestling them in each other to leave room for other things after I had washed them. Over time, the number of these nestled cylinders doubled, then tripled. Why the hell were they buying so many extras? I found out when I was told I would face a written reprimand if I continued to nestle the containers after washing them, because they could not be pulled apart in the morning. Management considered they were ruined because they had become fused together. They bought extras to make up for the ruined containers. I laughed when I was told this, because I understood exactly what was going on. Using my high school science classes, I knew the air between the cylinders was hot when I stacked them together and was expanded. As the air cooled through the night it created a vacuum of sorts as the volume of air shrank, drawing the cylinders together. To free the cylinders, I placed a stack on the stove and turned up the heat to re-expand the volume of air between them. With a pop the cylinders were freed, and my manager looked at me like I was a wizard. I was 16 years old.
Education, or rather knowing things regardless of the source of information, is like Batman's toolbelt. Batman is a normal person just like you and me, so he needs toys to get him out of sticky situations. He cannot fly away to safety like Superman, or zap threats with laser vision. Batman needs to carry everything he might need to use to get to safety, and what he will use will vary based on what he faces. He might need a zipline, or to rappel up a wall. He may face bullets or a knife, might even need to swim. Because he can't pause life to go retrieve what he needs, he must carry all of these different tools on his utility belt. Knowledge is that utility belt, every piece of information a different tool. The better equipped Batman is, the more likely he is to survive. But we aren't Batman are we?
Imagine a special forces soldier hot on the trail of an Iraqi army unit in the latest Gulf War. He and his squad have been looking for this unit to wipe them out and keep the push toward Baghdad from attack from the side (or flank). The unit has been difficult to locate, and lost in the desert this special forces soldier has to pee. Relieving himself against a hill, he notices the hill does not look natural. How does he know it doesn't look natural? In basic training he and another recruit talked at great length about geology. His friend showed him how nature piles up rocks and dirt to determine man-made versus nature made structures. It was idle chitchat at the time, a minor detail the two discussed on training in the woods, but now that information was coming back to the special forces soldier in the deserts of Iraq. He walks up the hill to investigate it just as an armed Iraqi soldier was walking up the other side, and the two engaged in hand to hand combat. Victorious, the special forces soldier radios his men, for he found the edge of the Iraqi military camp. Had he not realized the hill was man-made, he would have turned away just as the armed Iraqi crested his side of the hill, and probably been shot. The chance discussion of geologic processes in basic training saved the special forces soldier's life.
So no, we are not all Batman. We might be a 16 year-old dishwasher keeping his job, or we might be a special forces soldier peeing against the enemy's fortifications; the only thing we know for sure is we never know what we may need to know, so we should know as much as we can.
On the need for paradigm shifts
The whole point of this blog has been to challenge established perspectives and illuminate paradigms that many may not understand they possess. A long running thought experiment I started with my late brother many years ago may best illustrate why this is important. This example also reinforces my point about the limitation of labels, and the power of a single word choice.
A basic component of the forces of nature is gravity. Gravity always affects us whether we are aware of it or not, and indeed our lives would not be possible without it. Newton offered the first law of gravity, in which some basic principles of gravity were described, then expounded upon by Einstein as our frames of reference changed. For all the vaunted knowledge of these two great thinkers, all they have been able to do is to describe gravitational properties mathematically. These equations simply allow us to predict how a massive object is affected by gravity (or how gravity affects space); these equations do not tell us what gravity is.
What is the source of gravity? In elementary school science we are taught that here on Earth, we are pulled to the Earth by the force of gravity contained within it. Newton similarly described the pull of the Earth on a falling apple. It is assumed that gravity is a force intrinsic to any object that has mass, and that the more massive the object the greater the gravitational attraction to it.
Here is the novelty of a paradigm shift: what if we are not pulled, or drawn to the Earth, but rather, we are pushed toward it? Appreciate the difference between the following two sentences--gravity is a force that pulls us toward Earth; gravity is a force that pushes us toward Earth. In the first sentence the source of gravity is intrinsic to the planet on which we live. As such, to unravel its secrets we must look to the Earth, to mass, for answers. In the second, we must look to space, to everything but mass, for answers. Simply changing that perspective opens up completely new avenues of exploration, and all for the substitution of one word.
In high school science we are introduced to the concept of vaccuums. During the course of that discussion the teacher likely says, "nothing in science is ever pulled, it is pushed." The vaccuum demonstration underlies that concept; in order to achieve equillibrium air rushes in to a vaccuum. The greater pressure outside a vaccuum pushes air into the vaccuum, but the air is not sucked, or pulled, into it. Even the idea that a child pulls a wagon is not correct in a scientific sense. Rather, the child's hand is wrapped around a handle, and part of that child's palm and fingers push the back side of the handle in whatever direction the child moves. The orientation of the child in respect to the wagon is irrelevant; in a strict scientific sense, the forces involve pushing on some part of the wagon to make it move.
Yet we still insist that gravity pulls us toward Earth. Instilling that paradigm in children then provides them a frame of reference through which they may further explore the force later, perhaps incorrectly. Thus we see the importance of paradigm shifts, changing perspective, understanding word choices and labels in general.
As for the thought experiment, run your own. How might gravity be a force that is imposed on us from outside, rather than something intrinsic to the Earth? What are its properties under this new perspective? What is its source? Perhaps I'll share my thoughts in a later post.
A basic component of the forces of nature is gravity. Gravity always affects us whether we are aware of it or not, and indeed our lives would not be possible without it. Newton offered the first law of gravity, in which some basic principles of gravity were described, then expounded upon by Einstein as our frames of reference changed. For all the vaunted knowledge of these two great thinkers, all they have been able to do is to describe gravitational properties mathematically. These equations simply allow us to predict how a massive object is affected by gravity (or how gravity affects space); these equations do not tell us what gravity is.
What is the source of gravity? In elementary school science we are taught that here on Earth, we are pulled to the Earth by the force of gravity contained within it. Newton similarly described the pull of the Earth on a falling apple. It is assumed that gravity is a force intrinsic to any object that has mass, and that the more massive the object the greater the gravitational attraction to it.
Here is the novelty of a paradigm shift: what if we are not pulled, or drawn to the Earth, but rather, we are pushed toward it? Appreciate the difference between the following two sentences--gravity is a force that pulls us toward Earth; gravity is a force that pushes us toward Earth. In the first sentence the source of gravity is intrinsic to the planet on which we live. As such, to unravel its secrets we must look to the Earth, to mass, for answers. In the second, we must look to space, to everything but mass, for answers. Simply changing that perspective opens up completely new avenues of exploration, and all for the substitution of one word.
In high school science we are introduced to the concept of vaccuums. During the course of that discussion the teacher likely says, "nothing in science is ever pulled, it is pushed." The vaccuum demonstration underlies that concept; in order to achieve equillibrium air rushes in to a vaccuum. The greater pressure outside a vaccuum pushes air into the vaccuum, but the air is not sucked, or pulled, into it. Even the idea that a child pulls a wagon is not correct in a scientific sense. Rather, the child's hand is wrapped around a handle, and part of that child's palm and fingers push the back side of the handle in whatever direction the child moves. The orientation of the child in respect to the wagon is irrelevant; in a strict scientific sense, the forces involve pushing on some part of the wagon to make it move.
Yet we still insist that gravity pulls us toward Earth. Instilling that paradigm in children then provides them a frame of reference through which they may further explore the force later, perhaps incorrectly. Thus we see the importance of paradigm shifts, changing perspective, understanding word choices and labels in general.
As for the thought experiment, run your own. How might gravity be a force that is imposed on us from outside, rather than something intrinsic to the Earth? What are its properties under this new perspective? What is its source? Perhaps I'll share my thoughts in a later post.
Sunday, October 7, 2012
On Faith
Younger generations have fled the formal authority of churches in favor of a buffet style approach to their relation with higher powers, or embraced outright atheism and rejected the notion of higher powers altogether.
For many, science now provides answers to the mysteries of life. This has placed science at odds with various religious authorities who feel threatened by the encroachment of science into their domain. The word "faith" has become synonymous with religion and has come to mean something akin to belief without evidence. The root of science is to establish a system that will reveal universal facts supported by evidence, or at least facts as they are understood by a scientist and his or her contemporaries. Given what I have previously written about the ineffectiveness of labels, facts are fluid and subject to new evidence--as the demotion of Pluto from planet to plutoid can attest.
It is the rigid assurances of religion which had served mankind so well that have fallen in the face of new evidence, and driven young people toward the assurances of science with its facts. I count myself among those who turn to science rather than religion for answers to life's mysteries. I am not ignorant of the degree to which faith plays a role in the pursuit of those answers, however.
I have not performed the experiments that have provided those answers myself. I have not unearthed a fossil, detected the wobble of a star to infer the presence of planets, or classified a new species of insect. Other people have done these things, then written about them. To simply have faith that these people are telling the truth, or have not misunderstood the results of their work is not enough; their discoveries must be duplicated or verified by their peers to establish a consensus of opinion surrounding the discovery. Those peers write supporting or rejecting papers about the initial discovery. This is the heart of the scientific method.
Having done none of this work, and reading few of the results of the work of a scientist and their peers, I receive news of the discovery in roundabout ways typically. This is where faith comes in.
I have to have faith in the process of science and subsequent reporting. I cannot know that biases have been injected at any step of the reporting, and must take what is said as accurate. If a source has a track record of inaccurately reporting on discoveries, I will lose faith in the source of information. Where the reporting is accurate, biases may have crept into the science, but my faith in the system of science tells me that peer review will uncover it. To maintain my faith, I have to believe in the integrity of the process, but I cannot ever really be certain. However, since I have accepted the fluidity of facts in science, I also have faith that what I know through this process is incomplete or even wrong (given more evidence).
The difference between religion and science is less one of evidence and facts than one of certainty. Faith plays a large role in both, but one is certain while the other embraces uncertainty and doubt. I have little faith in anyone who uses either to make assurances or final conclusions.
For many, science now provides answers to the mysteries of life. This has placed science at odds with various religious authorities who feel threatened by the encroachment of science into their domain. The word "faith" has become synonymous with religion and has come to mean something akin to belief without evidence. The root of science is to establish a system that will reveal universal facts supported by evidence, or at least facts as they are understood by a scientist and his or her contemporaries. Given what I have previously written about the ineffectiveness of labels, facts are fluid and subject to new evidence--as the demotion of Pluto from planet to plutoid can attest.
It is the rigid assurances of religion which had served mankind so well that have fallen in the face of new evidence, and driven young people toward the assurances of science with its facts. I count myself among those who turn to science rather than religion for answers to life's mysteries. I am not ignorant of the degree to which faith plays a role in the pursuit of those answers, however.
I have not performed the experiments that have provided those answers myself. I have not unearthed a fossil, detected the wobble of a star to infer the presence of planets, or classified a new species of insect. Other people have done these things, then written about them. To simply have faith that these people are telling the truth, or have not misunderstood the results of their work is not enough; their discoveries must be duplicated or verified by their peers to establish a consensus of opinion surrounding the discovery. Those peers write supporting or rejecting papers about the initial discovery. This is the heart of the scientific method.
Having done none of this work, and reading few of the results of the work of a scientist and their peers, I receive news of the discovery in roundabout ways typically. This is where faith comes in.
I have to have faith in the process of science and subsequent reporting. I cannot know that biases have been injected at any step of the reporting, and must take what is said as accurate. If a source has a track record of inaccurately reporting on discoveries, I will lose faith in the source of information. Where the reporting is accurate, biases may have crept into the science, but my faith in the system of science tells me that peer review will uncover it. To maintain my faith, I have to believe in the integrity of the process, but I cannot ever really be certain. However, since I have accepted the fluidity of facts in science, I also have faith that what I know through this process is incomplete or even wrong (given more evidence).
The difference between religion and science is less one of evidence and facts than one of certainty. Faith plays a large role in both, but one is certain while the other embraces uncertainty and doubt. I have little faith in anyone who uses either to make assurances or final conclusions.
Tuesday, September 25, 2012
On the paradox of leadership
During any election cycle leadership comes up often. My new concept of leadership as discussed earlier (where leaders are powerless without followers and therefore followers have power) could best be described as "followship" rather than leadership. Such a concept of leadership forms the core of our democratic values, where leaders "derive their power from the consent of the governed" to paraphrase Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence.
What to make of this concept when leadership is expressed in the traditional sense in a political campaign? There is a direct contradiction between leadership in the traditional sense, and the concept of "followship." The traditional idea of leadership is a (usually) man pointing boldly to the horizon, calling out to the rest of us "follow me, and I will take you there." Such notions are antithetical to the principles of self-determination enshrined in our founding documents and principles. It could be argued that an election is a contest between two different points on the horizon, by two candidates with different destinations in mind.
If I may further the horizon analogy, with 360 degrees of horizon around us, we are choosing from only two points. As voters we are boxed in to these two choices, leaving 358 degrees of the horizon unimagined or unrealized. Even then, only one candidate will win, leaving us without 359 degrees of options. It seems the traditional view of leadership provides the illusion of choice, rather than the reality.
How to give voters more options under the concept of followship? It would almost require a rethinking of the relationship of voters to candidates, and public responsibility for our political institutions.
Perhaps instead of a choice between two points of view, a consensus could be established by "followers" on the preferred destination, and an election would be a decision on which candidate had the best ideas on how to get there. Such a system would require a good deal of inputs from the public and a level of familiarity (education) about different possible destinations on a scale that most are unwilling or unable to achieve. It would, however, be closer to a direct democracy than the republic we have now.
It could also be argued that it was the political system our founders had in mind. Or at least Thomas Jefferson, since he wrote about the necessity of an informed electorate in the successful function of democracy. Such a system cannot come about through the traditional concept of leadership, but rather through followship, and even then only if followers will lead.
What to make of this concept when leadership is expressed in the traditional sense in a political campaign? There is a direct contradiction between leadership in the traditional sense, and the concept of "followship." The traditional idea of leadership is a (usually) man pointing boldly to the horizon, calling out to the rest of us "follow me, and I will take you there." Such notions are antithetical to the principles of self-determination enshrined in our founding documents and principles. It could be argued that an election is a contest between two different points on the horizon, by two candidates with different destinations in mind.
If I may further the horizon analogy, with 360 degrees of horizon around us, we are choosing from only two points. As voters we are boxed in to these two choices, leaving 358 degrees of the horizon unimagined or unrealized. Even then, only one candidate will win, leaving us without 359 degrees of options. It seems the traditional view of leadership provides the illusion of choice, rather than the reality.
How to give voters more options under the concept of followship? It would almost require a rethinking of the relationship of voters to candidates, and public responsibility for our political institutions.
Perhaps instead of a choice between two points of view, a consensus could be established by "followers" on the preferred destination, and an election would be a decision on which candidate had the best ideas on how to get there. Such a system would require a good deal of inputs from the public and a level of familiarity (education) about different possible destinations on a scale that most are unwilling or unable to achieve. It would, however, be closer to a direct democracy than the republic we have now.
It could also be argued that it was the political system our founders had in mind. Or at least Thomas Jefferson, since he wrote about the necessity of an informed electorate in the successful function of democracy. Such a system cannot come about through the traditional concept of leadership, but rather through followship, and even then only if followers will lead.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)