Tap..tap..tap..We are blind creatures tapping through life

[coberst]

Tap..tap..tap..We are blind creatures tapping through life

 

Richard Feynman, now deceased, was a theoretical physicist and professor of physics at MIT gave to his students the following description of what physics is all about:

 

“We can imagine that this complicated array of moving things which constitutes “the world” is something like a great chess game being played by the gods, and we are observers of the game. We do not know what the rules of the game are; all we are allowed to do is to watch the playing. Of course, if we watch long enough, we may eventually catch on to a few of the rules. The rules of the game are what we mean by fundamental physics. Even if we know every rule, however…what we really can explain in terms of those rules is very limited, because almost all situations are so enormously complicated that we cannot follow the plays of the game using the rules, much less tell what is going to happen next. We must, therefore, limit ourselves to the more basic question of the rules of the game. If we know the rules, we consider that we “understand” the world.”

 

The natural sciences, especially physics, have been very successful at learning the rules of the game. Our didactic (teaching by telling) educational system has been very successful at teaching these rules to their students. The students have been very successful at using these rules and the algorithms and paradigms developed from these rules in developing the high tech economy that we have. We have not been equally as successful in matters regarding the human sciences; thus we kill and destroy constantly.

 

We are animals who can no longer depend on our animal instinct—we must depend upon our self and on others who, in turn, lean on us—life is overwhelming and the world is infinitely expanding and beyond our comprehension—we survive by chewing off chunks, narrow small digestible chunks—we must become oblivious of the rest or we are consumed by the enormity—Becker says “repression is normal self-protection and creative self-restriction” is our substitute for instinct—this is the meaning of partialization—we partialize the world—the well-adjusted man or woman partializes the world so that s/he can normalize anxiety.

 

The Holy Roman Empire, i.e. the Catholic Church, packaged life so that the uncritical could exist within the womb of dogma. This lasted for a millennium; post Enlightenment humans became too sophisticated for such slavish attachment and thus we moderns must create our own zone of normalcy.

 

We have become sophisticated enough to have removed from our life the total domination that the Church had over us but we have not yet discovered how to replace that all encompassing grasp with something more suitably designed to allow us to live together with our overwhelming technology.

 

They “tranquilize themselves with the trivial”.—Kierkegaard

 

How can we become intellectually sophisticated enough to survive our own technological success?

[coberst]

The Catholic Church dominated Western society for hundreds of years. The local priests taught the people what they needed to do to save their souls and thus the people did not need to critically examine their lives but slavishly followed the dictates of the Church. With the Renaissance followed by the Reformation and then the Enlightenment this Catholic structure crumbled and we were thrown on our own recourses for finding how to tame our anxieties about living and dying.

 

So far we have found only our markets and our technology to help us to live together and to face death.

[paigetheoracle]

Tap..tap..tap..We are blind creatures tapping through life

 

Richard Feynman, now deceased, was a theoretical physicist and professor of physics at MIT gave to his students the following description of what physics is all about:

 

“We can imagine that this complicated array of moving things which constitutes “the world” is something like a great chess game being played by the gods, and we are observers of the game. We do not know what the rules of the game are; all we are allowed to do is to watch the playing. Of course, if we watch long enough, we may eventually catch on to a few of the rules. The rules of the game are what we mean by fundamental physics. Even if we know every rule, however…what we really can explain in terms of those rules is very limited, because almost all situations are so enormously complicated that we cannot follow the plays of the game using the rules, much less tell what is going to happen next. We must, therefore, limit ourselves to the more basic question of the rules of the game. If we know the rules, we consider that we “understand” the world.”

 

The natural sciences, especially physics, have been very successful at learning the rules of the game. Our didactic (teaching by telling) educational system has been very successful at teaching these rules to their students. The students have been very successful at using these rules and the algorithms and paradigms developed from these rules in developing the high tech economy that we have. We have not been equally as successful in matters regarding the human sciences; thus we kill and destroy constantly.

 

We are animals who can no longer depend on our animal instinct—we must depend upon our self and on others who, in turn, lean on us—life is overwhelming and the world is infinitely expanding and beyond our comprehension—we survive by chewing off chunks, narrow small digestible chunks—we must become oblivious of the rest or we are consumed by the enormity—Becker says “repression is normal self-protection and creative self-restriction” is our substitute for instinct—this is the meaning of partialization—we partialize the world—the well-adjusted man or woman partializes the world so that s/he can normalize anxiety.

 

The Holy Roman Empire, i.e. the Catholic Church, packaged life so that the uncritical could exist within the womb of dogma. This lasted for a millennium; post Enlightenment humans became too sophisticated for such slavish attachment and thus we moderns must create our own zone of normalcy.

 

We have become sophisticated enough to have removed from our life the total domination that the Church had over us but we have not yet discovered how to replace that all encompassing grasp with something more suitably designed to allow us to live together with our overwhelming technology.

 

They “tranquilize themselves with the trivial”.—Kierkegaard

 

How can we become intellectually sophisticated enough to survive our own technological success?

 

God knows and that is no joke! By this I mean that the better part of us(Go(o)d) will always seek out new answers, new ways of doing things. The chess analogy is good but it doesn't include the terror and blunder that comes from not knowing and can't be avoided if we are to discover new things for ourselves and our societies (If the universe is infinite and time eternal, then so is learning and to face this is to know that you can never be free of emotional handicaps (our own ignorance) or emotional joys (finally discovering the truth/ being able to accomplish what we couldn't before). Also if the only constant is change, then we can never be sure of anything forever or be right about everything forever either (What applies today may only be relative to our time or place i.e. seem more constant (bigger/ longer lasting) than something else (short cycle/ minute).

[coberst]

“Yet man also knows more or less that the lost paradise [mother] cannot be found; that he is condemned to live with uncertainty and risks; that he has to rely on his own efforts, and only the full development of his powers can give him a modicum of strength and fearlessness. Thus he is torn between two tendencies since the moment of his birth: one, to emerge to the light and the other to regress to the womb; one for adventure and the other for certainty; one for the risk of independence and the other for protection and dependence”

 

Quotes from “The Heart of Man” by Erich Fromm

[paigetheoracle]

“Yet man also knows more or less that the lost paradise [mother] cannot be found; that he is condemned to live with uncertainty and risks; that he has to rely on his own efforts, and only the full development of his powers can give him a modicum of strength and fearlessness. Thus he is torn between two tendencies since the moment of his birth: one, to emerge to the light and the other to regress to the womb; one for adventure and the other for certainty; one for the risk of independence and the other for protection and dependence”

 

Quotes from “The Heart of Man” by Erich Fromm

 

Interesting quote as it ties in with a thread of mine - Cause of Nanny State Found, in social sciences forum. It too points out how we jump from wanting to be (s)mothered, to fighting for independence (See also Patrick McGoohans TV series, 'The Prisoner', for the battle between individual freedom and group responsibility.