Random Opus

RANDOM OPUS

RANDOM OPUS - Random Guy

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Introduction You could say that this is a philosophical work pretending to be a short story - but it makes no such claim. This format merely seems useful to illuminate the processes that led to some of my beliefs. Further, the process of searching for answers is often more valuable than any concrete conclusions in such matters, primarily because going through the process enables us to examine and thus change our mindset as we desire, whereas just being handed conclusions means that we look at those conclusions along the same lines of thought that we are otherwise used to. Thus, those conclusions are not so valuable by themselves. Another thing that needs to be addressed here is the reason for writing this book: it is not because I have gained definitive insights into the issues I examine. Rather, my ideas keep changing - another reason why the format of the book is like this: sometimes going over the arguments made me reconsider my own opinions. However, most likely my ideas will never really crystallize - this is not something I fear but rather something I embrace, as I would want the later parts of my life to mean as much to me as its first parts. So my ideas will likely never crystallize, but finding myself to be fundamentally interconnected with other people and other entities in the fabric of life it would be a waste to spend all my life thinking

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about certain issues without sharing my thoughts with others. Sharing my thoughts with others will hopefully do at least one of two things: 1) Draw their attention to these as issues worth looking at, and 2) Give them inputs for their own thoughts on these issues. In any case, suppose I were to find answers to these that I found to be definitive. Then one of two things could happen: 1) I could be wrong, in which case to insist on the finality of my answers would only be to make a fool of myself. 2) I could be right. Here again, two things could happen: i) My claim to definitive answers, though justified, would not be accepted. I would not want to put myself through this. ii) My claim would be justified and would also be accepted. This would possibly lead to fanatical thinking among those who accept my ideas, what with always being in the right – which would be undesirable. In any case, I seriously doubt that most people would be inclined to understand the claims of one who would make such a justified claim. In practice, they would interpret the claims according to their own whims and wishes, so that even if my claims were to always be right about the subjects of these respective claims, other people would still almost always be in the wrong about my claims. Because of these factors, while I see no harm in pursuing definitive answers as I want on my own, I don't think I would share such definitive answers with other people

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even if I found them. On the other hand, I firmly believe that since we are all interconnected I must share with others whatever insights I may have on issues that have occupied me for long periods of time. Additionally, I personally feel that at this point in time I finally have something that approaches a coherent worldview. This, along with the fact that coming up with this coherent worldview involved coming up with certain non-trivial ideas and perspectives that may not be familiar to most people, leads me to believe that I should share these views and the processes behind these with others. Merely talking to people or posting on various boards gives a fragmented view of these views, and makes it hard to explain how they were arrived at and how they all fit together. Hence, I found it worthwhile to try and express my views on these subjects and the process behind arriving at them all together, where they can be examined in their totality. One obvious way to do that seems to by putting it all together in a book. I do not expect many people to read or to appreciate it. This is largely because that is the fate of most books, but also in part due to the fact that if you look at my favorites amongst books that address such questions and were written after the invention of the printing press – almost all of them were poorly received, at least to begin with. However, even if only one person finds this useful to develop their own perspectives on life, and even if that too happens only after I am already dead, it is

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better than if I had simply taken these thoughts with me to the grave instead of sharing them with other people.

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Table of Contents i Introduction

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ii Table of Contents

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1 Prologue

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2 The Living World

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3 Ideas of Mathematics

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4 Essentials

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5 Laws of Nature

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6 Judge Thyself

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7 What the Body Wants

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8 Compassion

43

9 Selfishness

45

10 Emotions snd Identity

47

11 Ego

50

12 Cessation

55

13 Peaks and Plateaus

58

14 Kins and Katas

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15 Will

71

16 Metaphor

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17 True Fanatic

78

18 Mystics

83

19 Fraudmen

86

20 God

88

21 Opposites

91

22 Logic

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23 Magic

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24 Technology

101

25 Negative Statements

104

26 Categorical Imperative

109

27 Means and Ends

115

28 Trust

122

29 Courage

123

30 Competition

127

31 Sacred

128

32 Desert

130

33 Greatness

137

34 Heart of Sword

140

35 Plan Management

143

36 Tribalism

150

37 Pacifism

152

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38 Non-Violence

154

39 War

157

40 Likeness

160

41 Assumptions

166

42 Immortality

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43 Growing Up

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44 Division of Labor

175

45 Politics of Panacea

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46 Government

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47 Equality

183

48 Leniency and Uniformity

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49 Globalization

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50 Future Generations

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51 Epilogue

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52 Appendix: Witticism

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Prologue It is said that when a man dies, his past life flashes before his eyes. But what if he is also the last of his kind? Is it not fitting that the past life of his culture appear to him? King Abos of the Marahi Civilization, third of that name, son of the great King Ados - that is how he had been known. His father, having conquered almost the whole of the continent, had nevertheless passed away before he could consolidate his power. This left Abos with a heavy responsibility to fulfill at the tender age of fifteen. But he had ably managed his responsibilities, not only consolidating the kingdom but also conquering the small tribes that had successfully resisted his father. The next forty years saw him becoming the longest-serving monarch in living memory, and that stability in addition to his able governance meant that the Marahis were soon living in an era of untold peace and prosperity, one that their ancestors couldn't even have dreamed of. But with success comes arrogance, and Abos did not hesitate to encourage enterprising Marahis to explore out to the seas. When they came back with news of other continents and other civilizations who had yet to learn of ships, he thought to annex them into his kingdom. But simply because they did not know much about the sea did not mean that they lacked weapons - they commandeered

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the very ships that had attacked them and forced the navigators to lead them back to the Marahis. Abos had neither expected nor prepared for this, and while he tried very hard to put up some resistance it was a swift loss - not only did the enemy have the benefit of surprise, they had lived in a state of continual war for millennia which had led to far superior firepower on their side. Abos had believed himself divinely preordained to always be a victor, so he kept encouraging his troops while laying tactical plans from the central location of his castle. All across his kingdom, his loyal Marahi soldiers were falling by the numbers. But he always believed that this would merely highlight his skill when victory finally came. Thus, when the marauding hordes of Rabranias made their way to his castle, he led his forces up to meet them - which is when he saw heavy artillery in use for the first time (it had not yet been invented by the Marahis). Once he understood how thoroughly they were outmatched, his confidence gave way to an understanding of the stark realities of life. Immediately leaving his post, he fled from his attackers and from his beloved palace as far as possible. Watching their beloved king flee like an insect fleeing a thunderstorm broke what spirit the Marahi armies had left, and soon they surrendered without any further resistance. The Rabranias, taking advantage of their heavy machinery, cleansed most of the continent of human life. Abos proved unexpectedly good at running away, but he

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who had been used to the luxuries of palace life could not survive long when hunted like a dog. What's more, his craven display of cowardliness meant that his beloved former subjects now despised him, and joined the Rabranias in hunting him down. When they finally found him and turned him over to the authorities, he was regarded as no more than a common criminal. Of course, this did not redeem the Marahis in the eyes of their captors. Only a few hundred of them were spared, and they were all imprisoned along with Abos as proof of what happened to those who resisted the Rabranias. With the naval technology they had just discovered, and using the example of the Marahis in addition to their firepower - they were able to attack and subjugate all the continents. This took thirty years, and in that time the imprisoned Marahis kept dying until at the end only Abos, category 3 slave, was left. They all died cursing Abos, spitting at him for being a coward who had betrayed their hopes and aspirations, and for promoting the sea expeditions that led to their downfall. At this point he was no longer of any use to the Rabranias, who had renamed themselves „Rexans', meaning simply 'rulers'. Thus, being useless, Abos was deemed a waste of state resources. So at eighty-five years of age, he was kicked out of the prison into the Seba desert, and told to live on if he could. In an hour he had realized that he would die that day, and in five hours he was being proven right. With no food and water, and with no way to acquire either, he passed out...

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He passed out, and started started dreaming of forgotten people in forgotten places that he had never seen but recognized. They spoke in forgotten tongues that he could nevertheless understand, spoke of things he had not bothered with earlier...

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The Living World His first dream, like most that would follow, involved two friends walking down the streets in a lost city of another world. They looked otherwise happy but bored, and were curing their boredom by indulging in petty arguments: "Lately I have been wondering about the kinds of things that interest you, Raj - and I have been particularly struck by a particular question: We know that certain things in the universe are alive, and that some are not. But I have not yet found any good criteria to distinguish among them other than my own prejudices. Where does life begin and where does the lifeless end? Where does death begin, and where does life end? Have you given any thought to these questions?" "These are difficult questions. For millennia, people have tried to hold on to the view that they are special, being the only kind of entity to have a life, a 'soul' so to speak - spirits in a material world. But this approach led to various difficult problems. For one, how does the distinctly immaterial soul keep interacting with the material world? When does life begin? When does life end? Even after arguing for millennia, people were not able to reach a firm consensus regarding when and where it began or ended. The reason given for this was that consciousness is inherently a subjective affair, while only objective things can be

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objectively observed. However, while this gives us a good reason why we can think of ourselves as having consciousness, it does a far worse job of explaining how we can be sure that rocks, air, fire too don't have their own form of consciousness. Eventually, it was decided that we had too long been thinking of a null hypothesis where the whole world was purely material, and trying to explain why and how consciousness in the form of human beings could appear in this inherently non-conscious world. However, since we can be far more sure of our own consciousness than of the non-consciousness of the external world, the real null hypothesis, the simplest explanation for the issue at hand, is to assume that all things, if not conscious, at least had the seed of consciousness in them. What's left now, is to explain how it is that some things don't appear to have consciousness. The answer to that is, of course, that we attribute consciousness, as we understand, to things in accordance with how similar they seem to us. For example, even human beings have been considered to lack souls at various times depending on whether they are of a different race, skin color, build, and what not. Now that we understand the judgment of things to have consciousness or not, as no different from a mere judgment of how essentially similar they are to us - it becomes easier to see how we developed the notion of 'consciousness' as having recently arisen in an essentially 'non-conscious' world. After all, for eons before people like us came to exist, the universe was a patently alien place, with ways and means of organization that utterly differ from

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our own - at least on the surface. Like anything else, humanity is no more than a flicker in the vast darkness of eternity. And so it is, that like just about any other group of entities that has developed intelligence to the level where it can ask such questions, we consider the idea of consciousness as being restricted to us - restricted from things that don't think, things that do think but don't ask such questions, and things that ask such questions but are too different from us for us to understand that they too can ask and answer questions." "I see." "Now, we can understand that without any evidence to the contrary it is reasonable to assume that all things have consciousness or at least the seed of it. But what is the nature of this consciousness? If we regard it as something that permeates everything and is part of everything, is it then like matter? We have begun to see that matter seemingly has certain properties which do not seem to apply to consciousness. For one, the notions of space, time and identity seem to apply to nature. That is to say: it seems that two things cannot be at the same place at the same time - at least in the sense that there are elementary particles of which two cannot be at the same place at the same time. Also, one thing cannot be at two places at the same time. But if we do admit the existence of differences in consciousness on the basis of thoughts or some such thing, then at least in the case of multiple personalities or

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of possession, it is indeed possible for two „consciousness‟ entities to be in the same place at the same time. Also, if someone is for example running a vehicle through remote control, it is possible that through practice, he becomes as proficient at it as in using his own body, and thus comes to think of it as part of his self. He may begin to feel that he is projecting his own self to the vehicle, even as his own body sits some place far away from the vehicle, and is also his self. If this seems unconvincing, let us not forget that the idea that his self is attached to his body is also based on the sense of agency he feels from it, in the same way as for the vehicle. So if the idea that his self has somehow become projected in the vehicle is unconvincing, the idea that his self was in his body to begin with is not any less so. These things seem to indicate that the notions of space, time, and identity do not apply to consciousness in the same way as they do to material things." "I see, this seems to show the will as coexisting with, interacting with, but yet distinct from the material world" "This is what we thought at first. But there are certain complications to this. To begin with, it turns out that in a way, material particles can exist in two places at once. Also, two macroscopic material objects can be made to coincide for all practical purposes, even if the same cannot be done with microscopic particles. This is no less than the notion that two macroscopic conscious entities can coexist"

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"But then again, this does give us a hint of the difference at least there do exist microscopic physical entities. The notion of microscopic consciousnesses is absurd - except if you allow for the existence of individual souls." "The problem with the notion of individual souls is that there is no way to distinguish them by objective methods. With a physical elementary particle, you can try to trace its trajectory through time and space, to find something continuous. But such a thing cannot be done with consciousness. Is someone who slips into a coma or loses past memory the same as the person before the incident? If so, is a body after death also the same consciousness as the body before death? If so, then at what point in its decay and decomposition or alternately during its combustion does it cease to be so? If a body gets burned and the ashes are spread over the world, whereby they slowly slip into the food of various organisms and thus reappear at various points in the food chain simultaneously, then would you say that the old consciousness is now spread diffusely over many organisms? If so, then your notion of atomicity seems to have gone bust. If not, then at what point did the dead body which was the same consciousness as the live body, cease to be so?" "Of course, such arguments can - and do - get made about the identity and existence of material elementary particles, given that they too spend their time getting created and

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destroyed." "Yes - and like this, as people kept finding out more and more weird properties of consciousness as opposed to the material world, they found the material world only too willing to step up and match said weirdness. Thus, in the end, they were forced to conclude that the conscious world, far from being a compatriot of the material world, was merely another aspect of it - just as waves and particles were aspects of it. This notion of one thing having many aspects was earlier supposed to be restricted to mathematics before the real world jumped on the bandwagon - but then, this has always been the case. The revelation of the living world, and later on the revelation of one thing with many aspects not being an aspect merely of mathematics or of physics, but of all realms of human thought, later on led to the birth of mercenaries whose prime purpose was to find the aspect of any given scenario that was most beneficial for their employers - but that is another story." "All right, I am not interested in all those aspects of your history. Just tell me one thing - if that is your theory of consciousness, then what do you think happens when we die?" "Ideally, 'you' cease to exist as the person you imagine yourself to be - primarily because the memories associated with this identity get eliminated along with the body. But the

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consciousness that resides in you, that feels it to be you, that you are afraid will die - that cannot and will not die. It is a somewhat diffuse entity, and thought itself to be various other things even as it thought itself to be you. With your death, it will start many new, fresh lives. It may not retain any memory of being you, but it still is you." "What, then, of people who have been shown to have past life experiences?" "Yes, these people - like ghosts, and apparitions - are all unfortunate cases. You see, sometimes the identity of being a particular entity do not cease to be, and the memories of being a certain person continue long after they would normally end. This makes the will dwell on the past and only leads to its getting bogged down, weighed by the past. A life of infinite terror and weariness is far worse than one of death and regeneration. These unfortunate cases happen when the issues in that life failed to get resolved to any extent. We should help them get rest, for they are not only the same as us - they are exactly us."

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Ideas of Mathematics In his second dream, Abos again had the misfortune of going through the banter of two people talking to each other in lost lands. The terrain had changed here, but it would keep changing in all his dreams - as would the speakers. Describing all of the locales and the people will merely distract and annoy you, so I will let the speakers speak for themselves: "Isn't it great that the world is neatly ordered by mathematical laws? How would it be for us to live in a world with no mathematical laws? I can answer that question: it would be horrible. We would have no control on our actions, because any action could turn out either way. Acting without being able to act for any purpose is the same as not being able to act at all, because the purpose of any action is not merely to effect changes on our own body but to effect changes in the wider world through its use." "Considering that is largely how we look at social life even now - with the consequences of actions being unpredictable - I doubt it would involve anything more than intelligent guesswork." "But even the ability to make intelligent guesses assumes some kind of mathematical structure to the world -

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probabilistic if not deterministic - does it not?" "I guess I do agree with you there. However, it's a fact that even if we lived in a world that had no mathematical structure, or the structure was of a form that was wholly incomprehensible to us, we would still try to impose on it structures similar to the ones we employ in this world. If we did not do that, it would not be us human beings that you would be talking about here. In other words, the nature of mathematical ideas we have - about our world and otherwise, are fundamentally part of our selves. They make us what we are. So as long as we are talking about us, no matter what kind of world we lived in we would have had such ideas, mathematical or otherwise. In other words, the fact that we have those ideas in no way implies that those ideas are inherent in the world, only that they are inherent in our own minds." "You could say that, but is it not also true that in the world we actually do inhabit, these ideas have driven technological progress? That those societies who have investigated and have worked on these ideas have had a clear advantage over those who have not done so - both in warfare and in everyday peaceful life? Does this not contradict your notion of mathematical ideas merely existing in our own head?" "Mathematical ideas do exist in our own head, and this is borne out by the large amount of work people are willing to

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do on mathematical ideas that seem to have nothing to do with 'real life'. But, in spite of coming from our own head these are also part of the structure of the 'real world' that we live in - as can be seen from all the examples of people working out abstract ideas in their head, certain that while they had done something clever it could not be used to kill people... only for someone, a few years later, to discover a way to use those discoveries in utterly pragmatic, terrifying ways. In my opinion, this reflection of mathematical ideas from our mind to the real world is an indication of the interconnectedness of all things. What this means is that we live in the world where mathematical ideas from our minds make sense. One of the reasons for this is that if we had lived in a world where we had not belonged, we would probably have simply have died out - what with finding patterns that do not exist yet create misleading expectations. The ability to die where we don't fit in leads to our existing only where we do fit in. This is why I believe that even in the case of social and political ideas, after discovering what our true nature regarding these is, we should stay true to our nature instead of molding our fundamental goals and aspirations to the external world: if we can live in the world being true to ourselves, that is well and good. But if we cannot, there is no harm in dying rather than living on perforce in a life of suffering. This interconnectedness also means that there is no fundamental disparity between seeking self-knowledge and knowledge of the world. For example, the act of learning mathematics can be done for the sake of self-knowledge,

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but in some sense it also gives us knowledge of the world that we inhabit."

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Essentials More people, more locations: "Don't you think that far too many people use words in a confusing manner? Wouldn't we all be better off with rules and regulations regarding the correct usage and meaning of words? I am not talking here of legal rules, but it should be easy to make programs to dictate what the correct meanings of words and phrases are. With us being able to pin down the precise meaning of language, it should be easy to encourage people to say what they mean and mean what they say." " Stop right there. I know what way this is going, and have very strong views on this and on related subjects. So from now onwards, let me speak - I will speak and you listen: To begin with. words do not have meaning in themselves; what meaning they have is with respect to their context. The context has everything to do with the one who said it and the listener. Rather than an expression of general truths, the purpose of words in general is similar to any other action caused by the actor (the speaker) on the one being acted upon (the listener here). Words distinguish themselves by the variety of effects they can have on the listener, even when the actions of the speaker remain the same. This is because they have the potential to appeal to

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higher faculties of intellect and feeling, due to which a book can mean various different things to various different people depending on their own experiences and faculties. But merely because you listen to something that can appeal to the highest faculties of understanding does not mean that such an appeal automatically gets made. Indeed, accumulation of learning can often lead to a false sense of complacency in someone who was originally looking not merely for information by itself, but rather for an understanding regarding what that information means and implies. Although words need not necessarily be mere representations of facts, it does not mean that someone who relies on words primarily for the representation of facts is a fool. Rather, when a tool that can be used for any form of political agenda is instead used to cooperate with others in the search for understanding (rather than to seek privileges for those like oneself - or to otherwise make fools of listeners), we can only say that words are being put to better use than where they are being used for mere politics. However, we need to realize that it is the use of words to gain understanding that is awesome, not words in themselves. Not only can words be pointless when indulged in for their own sake and not for any kind of understanding, they can be positively harmful in the hands of those who see words merely as a device to further their political aims. This is not to say that we need to stop such people from using words (after all, it may cause less loss of

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life to fight with words rather than with guns, and even crooked words offer some understanding of the speaker and perhaps even the subject to a discerning listener), rather that we need to consider words critically, understanding that proficient use of words may merely denote a lot of lies and politics to sift through, rather than a lot of understanding to make use of." "Even if I did accept this, wouldn't it be strange that words are only meaningful as means to the end of gaining more understanding while other concepts like numbers are meaningful in themselves? Why should words be special in this regard?" "Who said that words are special in this regard? Other mental concepts like numbers are also similar to these, although they may not be identical. For instance, we may think that numbers, objects, etc. 'exist' in some sense which would mean, for example, that any alien civilization we may come across would definitely have these concepts and in a similar way to us. But this cannot be regarded as being strictly true. Although there is no doubt that when one conceives of, say, numbers 2, 4 and operation on them + as we do, then 2 + 2 will always equal 4, it is highly doubtful that a system of thought which is as effective as our our own (mathematics-based) systems in dealing with the world and largely in the same way, must necessarily have the concept of numbers. I would describe it by saying that numbers are not fundamental to the external world.

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For instance, when we come across a bunch of say 24 grapes, instead of considering them as being 24 grapes, we could also consider them as being just one thing (a bundle) or a collection of an extremely large number of atoms. Here again any given atom is not indisputably part of the bunch or not: there is a certain hazy boundary where we will have difficulty in deciding whether or not to allocate a given atom to the bundle. This haziness also, of course, puts the notion of identity into doubt: we not only have difficulty in talking about the 'one bundle' just as we had difficulty in talking of the 'collection of x atoms', we also have difficulty in talking of the '24 grapes', because we are not longer able to talk of even a single grape. Because of this, we must conclude that numbers are not something inherent to the world that we forcibly accept due to living in it, it is rather a feature of our mental organization of the world as a collection of objects. Once we settle on one of the many ways in which we can classify our combined sensory experiences into objects, the fact that we are mapping a very vast class of 'all possible combinations of sense experiences' into a rather smaller class of 'objects as defined by us' means that we can have multiple instances of any given class of object. It would be inefficient to classify groups of similar objects into just 'one object' or 'many objects', so we have the notion of numbers. This is not to say that numbers are an illusion or that objects are an illusion. If they are abstractions, they are

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very useful abstractions. They have helped us a lot, and certainly provide a very good model of the world. However, the point remains that there is no way to be sure that the same level of practical utility could not be achieved by say a species of aliens who were unable to conceive of numbers, by using some other form of abstraction. Simply because we cannot conceive of it does not mean that it cannot happen. I see no way to prove that it cannot happen. Also, the fact that all numbers, even 1, are merely useful constructs in our own head, and utterly depend on the classification we use on objects, mean that without such rules for classification, numbers are void of meaning. For instance, we say that there is one sun for the earth. But if we say that a sun is 'something the earth revolves around', or even that 'it is a self-luminous ball of largely hydrogen in space around which the earth revolves', we could say that the earth has not just one, but many suns. This can be done like this: take the sun as we know it, and divide it into smaller sub-balls. This will leave some residue, but that will be as inconsequential to us as is the fact that according to our current objects, the earth is pulled by the gravity of not just the sun, but of myriad other heavenly bodies too. Alternately, we could keep subdividing them into a practically infinite number of minisuns. According to that we would say that we revolve around many suns. You could object that only one of them would hold the center of gravity that the earth revolves around, but by that logic even in binary star systems, only

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one of the stars - at most - would generally have the center of gravity that any given planet would revolve around. So we ignore that objection. Similarly, the question of whether there is none, one, many or infinite Gods would be unanswerable as while for any given description of the term 'God' it may be simple enough to decide whether or not the answer is 'none', if we are able to decide that 'none' is not the answer then we must be able to form a concept of 'God' as an entity. As soon as we do that, our initial argument of how any entity we can conceive of can be described as being one, many or infinite again comes into play and we are unable to choose between the alternatives. We may be able to conceive of any particular attribute of God, but not the entire concept of „God‟, as being completely describable. Thus the concept of monotheism truly arose not in the notion that 'God is One', but from the notion that 'God may be One, Many or Innumerable - but we are One and we are the Chosen of God'. Similarly, other notions of monotheism have as a starting point that God who created the Heavens and the Earth, also dictated some books truthfully and is alone worthy of being worshiped. Both these concepts give a certain attribute of God - whether declaring certain people as His Chosen Ones and providing supernatural assistance to them, or Creating the World - and say that only those who satisfy given criteria deserve worship. None of these is incompatible with the notion that since God cannot even be completely

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conceived of, it is futile to number God even as one - for if God is one, then what is the many? Similarly, the same question can be asked of the entirety of existence - if it is one, then what is the many? What I am trying to say here is that when we come across a concept or a word that aims to describe something transcendent, utterly encompassing our whole existence, and too profound to lend itself to full comprehension by us - at those times, the notion of numbers - the attempt to classify that concept using numbers - becomes a void and futile quest. We have already seen how it is futile to argue whether 'God' or 'The Totality of Existence' is one, many or infinite. Similarly there is one more thing which is so vast, profound and transcendent that it is futile to try to put numbers to it. By this I mean: 'The Totality of Consciousness'. Since we have already seen how the classification into objects is devoid of any inherent objective reality, and is rather a convenient abstraction for own minds, it also follows that the classification into various sentient and nonsentient beings is also merely a convenient abstraction. To begin with, the classification into sentient versus nonsentient entities is itself without any basis. We do have grounds for believing in our own sentience, but we have no more cause for belief in the non-sentience of tables and

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chairs, for instance, than the fact that they seem different to us. However, this same logic has been used in the past to deny the consciousness of other races, and even later on to deny the consciousness of animals and plants. We have outgrown all that, so maybe in due course of time we will also outgrow the notion that certain entities like tables and chairs have not even the seeds of consciousness. In due course of time, we will no doubt come to see that all things have consciousness, albeit to varying degrees. Once we see that consciousness flows through all, we can also see that the division of this consciousness into a number of different conscious entities is purely arbitrary. For instance, just as we can talk of a living human being, we can also talk of the living cells, the living organs - even the living liver - of that human being. Further, just as living humans beings can be seen as being constituted of living cells, we can also see human beings as the living cells of larger living entities like nations, sects and corporations. They too behave like we would expect living organisms to behave, except that just as it is hard for us too see living cells as living because the scale of consciousness is so different, this difference in scale also prevents us from properly seeing nations etc. as living entities. However, it does make sense to see them as living entities. In short, the classification of consciousness into various separate living entities is just a special case of the classification of our sensory experience into separate objects. I could say that in the end, all consciousness, just

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like all material reality, is one - but that is just as arbitrary as saying that they are both many or infinite. Thus, I will only say that 'Consciousness' is something to which numbers don't apply in any meaningful sense, just like 'God' or 'The Totality Of All Material Experience'."

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Laws of Nature "I have said earlier that I don't think there is much evidence for commonly-held notions of God, and in general it is meaningless to even try to phrase questions about God, including existence and number. However, similar arguments can be made regarding the presence of physical laws. Whichever laws we come up with seem to have their own limitations, and it is possible that it is beyond us to find a concise, coherent set of physical laws that fully explains all physical phenomena. Also, while the fact that we can and do try to use the experimental method to try to disprove a theory may be taken as some sort of justification for holding on to a particular theory (rather than others) until it is disproved, it cannot be a justification for belief in the notion that 'physical laws exist'. This proposition is something that does not lend itself to refutation by experiment. Experiments can only refute specific laws that lay claim to being genuine physical laws. However, refuting any number of theories that claim to give us genuine physical laws does not automatically refute the notion that 'physical laws exist'. Thus, belief in specific physical laws may be a result of the state of scientific progress - that in turn is arrived at by using the experimental method. But the belief that such laws exist in the first place, rather than the universe being essentially an arbitrary place that only coincidentally appears to have causality and laws regulating it built in - this belief in an

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ordered, lawful universe is essentially the result of blind faith. We could say it is something that is innate to us as human beings. Similarly, the belief in some sort of God may not be refuted even though specific notions about God keep getting exposed as being ill-founded, selfcontradictory, etc. However, the belief that God does exist is innate to many of us, just like the belief in an ordered, causal universe. For something as basic to our thought as one of these, it may be futile to try to prove or refute them since they seem to lend themselves to neither, and nor can they be ignored as being inconsequential. Regarding such questions, it seems inevitable that we will just keep believing or disbelieving in the existence or non-existence of 'God' and/or 'Ordered Causal Universe' - as per our inclinations regarding these. However, we need not let this stop us from attacking specific scientific theories or specific religious beliefs. When particular religious beliefs contradict themselves or our direct sensory experiences, it seems to me that in such cases it would be reasonable to reject them."

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Judge Thyself "In ancient times, people believed in the motto of 'know thyself'. But these days it has become more a question of 'judge thyself': if we don't judge ourselves negatively from time to time, it would render jobless many people who just want to improve us." "Because we would no longer wish to improve ourselves?" "Yes. But while this process of judging ourselves more and more is undoubtedly good for everyone around us, some people judge themselves to be awesome, superb and outof-this-world. Is this not cheating? Why is it that when I judge myself, it makes me feel more and more miserable while if someone else judges themselves, they only find themselves to be superb and awesome? This is unfair. Further, I suspect that they don't benefit society as much by positively judging themselves as I do by negatively judging myself! Should I not regard them all as worthless narcissists? They are making us all miserable by refusing to join in our common misery." "To begin with, the happiness of society derives from the happiness of individuals. So anyone automatically contributes to a happy society by being happy himself, even if his actions don't come with other effects that also benefit society. Because of this, the notion that becoming

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unhappy makes society happy and vice-versa - other things being equal - is weak to begin with. Moreover, the industries you help with your self-loathing would simply find something else to do if you stopped loathing yourself. Don't underestimate the variety of opportunities this world has to offer." "So you think that it is better to have a superiority complex rather than to feel inferior?" "In general, yes. But not to the extent that we are not able to live up to our positive self-image and get even more devastated when it breaks down. Or when it is built on patent absurdities, merely to hide deep-rooted insecurities. Of course, this seems to be reason for such positive judgment most of the time. However, while genuinely judging ourselves positively may make more sense than judging ourselves negatively, the fact is that I don't even agree with the premise that we should judge ourselves. It is one thing to know ourselves, that is: to know our relative strengths and weakness, to know our abilities and their limitations, to understand how people see us and otherwise how we relate to those with whom we happen to be interacting at a given point of time. But to judge ourselves would mean to have an overall positive or negative impression of ourselves, like we have for other people. With other people, it can make sense to judge them according to our impression of whether are allies or foes, and otherwise how they view us and what they can

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do about it. But how can one judge oneself? One's self is the very criterion by which he judges others (i.e. by what they mean to him, and otherwise by how they compare to him). So there is little sense in trying to judge oneself, for what does one mean to oneself?" "The way you are putting it, it looks impossible for people to judge themselves. But in actual fact, people do judge themselves - what kind of job they do of it is another matter." "People cannot judge themselves like they judge others by looking and considering what the subject of judgment means to themselves. So in such cases, all they can do is to copy the judgment that others have made about them. In other words, they see how society looks at them - and even if the judgment is negative, they still copy it, internalize it and pass it off as their own. Is this not an attempt to suck up to society in general? I would say that it is even worse: it is a sort of slavery to people who think nothing of them. But even if other people have positive views about you, to copy those views and to pass them off as your own is dishonest at best and a form of slavery at worst. This is because those views are not yours to begin with - they are not something you came up with according to your own judgment and your own criteria. For instance, you could judge that 'wow, other people run so fast'. But when you judge conversely, i.e. 'wow, I run so slow' it is not your original opinion, since you would not have come

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up with it on your own. Rather, it is something that got imposed on you when you talked to those other people - or worse, you have had such talks in the past and have thus internalized those thoughts about yourself being slow and weak. Similarly, one does not judge oneself to be good or bad, tall or short, crazy or ugly. Rather, such judgments are made by others and then handed to - or imposed on the person in question. So while knowing oneself can lead to freedom, judging oneself is merely a sign of slavery."

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What the Body Wants "You think that starving yourself is good, right?" "Yes, of course it is. By eating less, we can obtain better control over our senses." "Okay, let me ask you something: why does a body die?" "Because our will is not strong enough to make it keep on living. I am sure that if my will was strong enough, I could even live just on air." "A body does not die because of what you will, but because of what it wills. Normally, a body will die because it no longer wishes to live on. A body that is not given enough food will eventually become unhappy with its owner that is not giving it enough food. A body that is made to eat too much will eventually grow resentful of the owner who demands that it digest too much. A body that is denied rest will eventually grow resentful towards the mind in it. Just as we have discussed how all things can be said to have some form of consciousness, a body too can be said to have a sort of consciousness that can be distinguished from that of the mind residing in it. When it feels mistreated, or it gets bored of existing as it is, it can decide to die. So someone who wishes to live by pure will while torturing the body, is like a tyrant who tries to bully

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his people into submission. Sometimes it may work: but even when it does, it is far from being something admirable and worth replicating. If someone with such beliefs gets political power, he will be a tyrant politically too. On the other hand, someone who makes the welfare of the body his sole aim is like the rudderless person in social life who merely spends all his life trying to please everyone, and fails miserably. The course of action that is considerate and yet purposeful is to have one's own agenda - but to work with the body, rather than against it, in achieving it." "Fair enough, and I guess we could also say that those who abuse the body are people who, for some reason, hate themselves - but mistakenly identify themselves with their bodies, and thus punish it for no crime. However, while you have put many kind of situations to the body not 'wanting' to stay alive, I guess you will still have to make exceptions for cases like, say being cut up." "In such cases, you could say that the body after some effort gives up on life, and lets the blade pass through it. While it may not be a case of seeking for death, it is nevertheless different from your interpretation of the body only being able to act in certain ways as a lifeless entity: I am sure that someone with good relations with his body can ask it to pose resistance even to swords and bullets"

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Compassion "Compassion lies at the root of morality. So we should try to encourage compassion among others and also amongst ourselves. You will see that this will lead to a better society, a more compassionate society - a more moral society." "To say that compassion lies at the root of morality is like saying that anger and revenge lie at the root of justice, or that fear lies at the root of planning for the future, or that laziness lies at the root of science and technology - all these are true in a sense, but misleading. It is true that someone who has never felt compassion cannot arrive at morality. It is also true in general that one who feels more compassion is able to arrive at a more advanced stage of morality. However, someone who looks at everything through the lens of compassion, whose sole aim is to more and more compassionate - is not a moral being. Properly speaking, compassion is a necessary but not sufficient forerunner for morality. What makes compassion turn into morality is the same thing that makes anger turn into the quest for justice, or laziness turn into science and technology - when we deliberate on the implications of our deepest desires and impulses, and act on the conclusions of those deliberations, we become able to transcend our limitations and become sources of better expression of consciousness in the material world. Taken by itself,

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compassion is merely another base impulse like fear, anger or laziness: when we care only for those who remind us of ourselves, we end up demonizing those who don't. Love for one leads to hatred for the other. But reflecting on our preference for one over another leads us to see the emptiness of such distinctions, and to gradually spread our compassion to all to the extent that it is not even recognizable as compassion any longer. This is the real beginning of morality, at least the kind of heartfelt morality that arises out of compassion (as opposed to morality for show, or as a pretext for taking revenge). Similarly, some people have said that selfishness lies at the heart of morality. This is as absurd as saying that compassion lies at the root of morality. Someone who is instinctively compassionate is immoral while someone who sublimates compassion with foresight and balance with other impulses is moral. Similarly someone who uses foresight to attain selfish ends and balances it with other needs is moral, but someone who is blindly selfish is not moral: she is just like a spoiled child."

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Selfishness "Some people idealize the individual as the measure of all things, while for others this ideal is the state - or even humanity as a whole. What are your views regarding this??" "The expression of consciousness in the material world has evolved from atoms to cells to plants to 'lower animals' to human beings. Even now it is evolving in the form of societies, as religious groups, etc. Various people have glorified various stages of this evolution: some idealize a perfect man who is able to do whatever he wants, free from any wants, desires or obligations - someone who is fully a master of his own faculties. For others, the tendency has been to glorify a perfect state, which like the perfect man is self-sufficient and fully a master of its constituents this being the idea of fascism. But although it is true that both the ideal man and the ideal state are masterpieces of evolution, they have the problem of being dead ends - they no longer retain the capacity to combine with others into a still higher state of consciousness. Knowing that the universe is large and a single human or even a whole nation is small, it is ridiculous to glorify the cessation of evolution at a stage which is ultimately a small fragment of its full potential. It seems to make much more sense to look at alternatives where the ideal unit of consciousness man or nation - is seen as tolerant of and friendly towards

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other, less ideal such units because it realizes that evolution needs consciousness to grow into ever more complex units, even as alongside we also work towards the health and integrity of the smaller units so that the larger unit does not simply implode. For instance, a healthy man is needed for a healthy society, but a healthy man leads to a healthy society only when he contributes to it eventually, instead of being a lifelong hermit."

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Emotions and Identity "Wouldn't it be great to be rid of all negative emotions like fear, anger, hatred?" "These emotions have served their own purpose in history. Without fear, we would have no basis for caution. Eventually, you would see people walking off cliffs and burning themselves in ever greater numbers." "I find your scenario to be exaggerated. Nevertheless, even if we accept that these emotions have played a useful role in the past, don't you think that now we have evolved to the stage where we can do away with them? Can't the acts which require fear and anger be taken over completely by machines in a few decades? Aren't we better off with more positive emotions like confidence, and harmony among people?" "What I find disturbing is your idea of human beings becoming clueless about acts requiring fear and anger, after giving them over to machines. Also, being saturated with confidence, harmony and ecstatic physical pleasure is not really as desirable in itself as you seem to think it is. Someone who has always been confident without any reason to be otherwise, and has come to identify himself as a confident person, will be that much more helpless against overwhelming odds where he has no reason to be

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confident. This is not only be because he will not have a genuine understanding of self-doubt - but also because subconsciously he will keep forcing himself to remain confident even where that confidence does not have any basis, simply because he sees himself as a confident person. The same can be said of pretty much all such 'positive emotions' too, if you think about it: If you have it all the time and begin to identify yourself with it, then you will find yourself largely without its opposite in your artillery for dealing with everyday situations. Further, even to the extent that you are able to feel and use its opposite emotion, you will be inhibited from doing so, because of your self-image as someone who does not have such negative emotions. Now, anger and even fear do not always necessarily cause suffering - as can be borne out by anyone who has ever willingly ridden on a rollercoaster, seen a horror movie or shouted at other people for catharsis. However, even positive emotions, once you begin to identify yourself with them, cause suffering because your sense of self is restricted to them, because you don't know what to do without them, and because of the inhibitions caused by identifying the self with such emotions. In any case, the distinction of emotions into 'good' and 'bad' emotions can be quite arbitrary, changing from culture to culture and from time to time. So I think that when we say that emotions can cause suffering, suffering is not caused by having certain emotions instead of others. Rather, it is caused by identifying ourselves with our emotions, by becoming too attached to the self-image of

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being people who have certain kinds of emotion but not others." "You could say that. But I would still have to say that in general, the emotions we classify as 'negative', tend to be the ones it is easier to identify ourselves with and harder to get rid of - while generally the 'positive' emotions, for most people, are precisely those that we can have without readily identifying ourselves with them, or becoming unable to be rid of them." "In general, that may well be true. But while this is a good guideline, it is not always true for any given person that he will be more likely to get attached to and identify with a 'negative' emotion rather than a 'positive' one - it can also sometimes be the other way round. When this happens, I feel it would be better for us to realize that the source of suffering lies not in particular emotions themselves, but in how we get attached to and identify with them - and therefore that identification with, 'positive' emotions can cause as much suffering as with 'negative' emotions. Also, for this same reason, giving up emotions while becoming attached to the concept of ourselves as emotionless persons can hardly be considered a better plan than having emotions without becoming attached to them."

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Ego "I hate Raj: He spends so much time into making his body healthy and well-maintained. Does he not realize that his excessive zeal for health only exposes his vanity? Much better to let my body go to dust and make my mind and soul beautiful!" "No." "No?" "That is something I don't really agree with. In the past I had a similar point of view, but I have changed my opinion later on. It is true that many people who take extra care of their bodies only do so for the sake of vanity, to feel superior to others and due to fear of age, disease and decay..." "See?" "And yet, with your attitude your neglect of your body is also a form of vanity - on being less vain than others, and also of fear - fear that becoming fit will make you one of them." "You have agreed that taking care of your body may be a sign of vanity, but you also claim that not doing so may be

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a sign of the same. If both paths lead to vanity, does that mean that 'vanity' is merely a part and parcel of life, and not something we can choose to accept or reject? This contention goes against anything that I would be inclined to accept." "I have never said that both paths lead to vanity. I have merely said that both attitudes can possibly lead to it, or rather that both can be symptoms of vanity that already exists previously. As such, vanity is orthogonal to striving for good health." "Wait a moment: I have heard that once a man has done all that he has set out to do, he becomes careless of the world around him, like a baby. As such, it is possible to understand how someone lacking in vanity can take bad care of his health. But the other case - of someone led to taking good care of his health due to lack of vanity - is inconceivable, right?" "Wrong. First of all, simply because someone is lacking in vanity does not necessarily mean that he will suddenly turn into someone who have already done everything he may have needed to do. On the contrary, lacking in vanity merely means that you set out on the path towards that goal. Not only those whose actions are void of all purpose, but also those who are guided by the need to be at peace with themselves, more than by the need to impress others - can be said to be lacking in vanity. Similarly, someone

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who identifies their self with the body can be said to have an ego. This can be reflected by excessive striving for health, but it can also manifest itself as running away from good health. Why is this? If X who feels identification or ownership towards Y, then that can show itself as excessive yearning for Y. But on the other hand, it also shows itself in X feeling the right to abuse Y. When someone does not feel attachment, identification or ownership towards something..." "They are indifferent to it, right? Isn't that the same as being indifferent towards your health? Then where does the notion of taking good care of health due to lack in vanity come from?" "It is true that X, when feeling no attachment, identification or ownership towards Y would generally be indifferent towards Y. But there is one case where this does not hold." "And where is that?" "When X is using Y to achieve some end that they do care about. You can think of X interacting with Y for commercial purposes. X does not care about Y, but nevertheless treats Y well. If Y leaves of his own accord, there may be others to take his place. Nevertheless, even though Y by himself means nothing to you, it can make a lot of sense to treat him well, and to make sure that since he is of benefit to you, you are also of benefit to him. True, maybe everyone

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does not do that: but you would certainly expect someone lacking in vanity, or even otherwise any decent person to do that. When you no longer have anything to do with Y, you would leave him without any regrets - but while you are still taking benefit from him, it only makes sense to provide benefit to him too. Actually, this kind of argument can easily be extended to where Y is supposedly an inanimate object, using the notion of consciousness as a continuum where even inanimate objects have some trace levels of latent consciousness: but if I were to do that directly, you would be likely to see it as me lessening the value of human consciousness." "Right." "And I would regard that as a mistake on your part: our discussion on that would then take us away from the topic we are talking about here. So let's not go there." "Can we get back on topic?" "Yes. So, our relation with our body, at least as long as there are objectives we want to work through that require the aid of a live body to accomplish - it is like the relationship between X and Y. We may not identify with the body, we may not feel any sort of ownership towards it, we may not attached to it - and yet, since we are using it for our benefit it is only fitting that we are also of benefit to it, and otherwise nurture and maintain it. As long as we do

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have things we still want to do with life, I feel that we are better off accepting that and working honestly towards those goals making sure to benefit those who help us in the way, rather than pretending that we already have no need for anything." "Yes, that way we will only leave regrets in our life. I agree that we are better off facing the realities of life head-on. When we have achieved all we have to do, it makes sense to be truly indifferent to all: not before that."

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Cessation "How great it would be: to not be burdened with thoughts or responsibilities any more!" "Is that so? Many people mistakenly believe that, but have you ever tried actually spending a few months without any deep thought or any attempt to fulfill your responsibilities?" "I have not, but that is only because I have yet to find such an opportunity. I am truly unfortunate in that sense..." "If you try it, you will feel a sense of dissatisfaction. You could put it down to boredom - but it seems meaningless to call it boredom and hate it, when you yourself sought after it. On the other hand, one could try to pretend that with the cessation of thought and activity, you have achieved enlightenment, although your experience of dissatisfaction would seem to argue against such a claim." "But what is wrong in thinking so? Is it not great to be free of thought and activity?" "It is not so great when the cessation of thought and activity merely make you further bored and dissatisfied. But I would still say that this state is required as a prerequisite to enlightenment, because you need to see the problem in order to solve this problem."

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"Problem?" "Yes, problem. Boredom may not be the same as enlightenment, but it is the very opposite of it. The feeling of dissatisfaction is precisely the thing whose removal is called enlightenment. One could even describe enlightenment as the state where one can sit without doing or thinking anything - without feelings of dissatisfaction arising as a result of this. This hungering for stuff that makes our lives hell." "But why not then just stop doing stuff? Can't we just will it? Will that really work? Also, I have seen people lose all hope due to despair and they don't seem to be too happy..." "Indeed, it seems meaningless to say that one can merely will oneself to be happy without doing anything, or that being in despair is the same as having overcome attachment. One could say that these feelings that we have are indications, however imperfect, that we have work to do. Suppressing these feelings does nothing to negate that. Therefore, I would say that one is at peace with himself when he has set out to do what he was born to do, then has accomplished that, and then has refrained from frivolously creating new desires to work towards. Of course, this last part of not creating new issues is often the hardest part for anyone, but 'cessation of desire' refers to

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the process where old ones are fulfilled and new ones do not arise because the underlying causes relating to their arising are taken care of. On the other hand, 'suppression of desire' refers to a state where even existing desires are not taken care of, leave alone the underlying issues that make them arise. So these two are entirely different things. Further, this is an issue relating to the emotions (cessation of their underlying causes) not just ideas, and is therefore something to be done practically. Thus mere thinking about it, though possibly helpful, is not a substitute for actually getting your hands dirty. Just like obtaining dexterity in a sport, it is more about reaching a particular frame of mind and obtaining practical skills to deal with the underlying causes of dissatisfaction, rather than about processing more data from one's current state of mind, or merely speculating intellectually about concepts which one has been exposed to only from a theoretical point of view rather than having a first-hand familiarity with them."

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Peaks and Plateaus "Should the purpose of life be like a peak or like a plateau? I have seen many men who seem to think it is okay to just climb a few peaks, but the way I see it is: this way, once you do a few things, you are done. Success should be more like a plateau, where you attain some kind of high position and people respect you for that. That way, you can be a winner all the time, instead of just a little of the time" "Yes, until you die" "Huh?" "People who seem to think in terms of attaining some kind of plateau don't seem to realize that they will eventually die. A dead person does not have any permanent status except what is granted to him by the whims of posterity, and even if by some miracle gets famous enough to be remembered - that too with respect - for all of time... even if by some even greater miracle, what is remembered is truly representative of him, rather than being simply myths and legends that have been spawned by others using his name as no more than a prop - even if all this were to happen, the fact is that a dead body cannot do shit with any of this. You will not even get to know that someone still remembers your existence. Further, the reality is that no one is remembered for long after their death, unless it is in

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the form of legends where their name serves as little more than a prop for the agenda of other people. So the mere fact that you will die dictates that your goals should be in the form of climbing peaks, rather than achieving some kind of plateau. Of course, most people are so scared of death that they see no way to deal with it other than to completely ignore it. This is what makes them chase after dreams of permanent fame and position" "Okay, whatever" "If this would at least ensure their happiness before the event that they deny, i.e. death, would appear then it would still be halfway acceptable. But the reality is that this kind of thinking does not just prevent a good death, it also prevents a good life: Once you reach the position that you want to retain for all eternity, you spend the rest of your life being on the defensive, trying to protect your gains at all costs. This process in itself makes your life hell, because you can afford no failure, when failure can happen not just due to a lack of effort on your part, but also due to a lack of goodwill by others, or even due to a lack of good luck - on the other hand, when what you yearn after are a few peaks, you are able to be far more tolerant of failure, because even those failures become merely roadblocks on the way to your desired destination. Consequently, you don't have to spend all the minutes of your life agonizing over the possibility of bad luck hitting you some time or the other - you can get over many kinds of setbacks. So in this

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way, you can live a far more robust and fault-tolerant, and thus happier life" "But if we are anyway going to die, doesn't it make more sense to say that whatever we do is ultimately meaningless? Why bother to have any goals at all? Picking up a few goals to have at random seems to be no different in essence from just randomly doing whatever you want. If you have, say, ten goals, then most likely you would have essentially chosen them randomly. On the other hand, if you have just one goal, then your life becomes meaningless once you are done with it" "Fair enough. So let me point out that every human being has some kind of essential nature, and happiness is attained by acting in accord with that nature. If you don't believe that such an essential nature exists, then let's just say that the combination of all things that you like to do give you an essential nature, in practice" "That sounds reasonable at first, but in reality there are various things that give us pleasure at first, and then lead to unhappiness. On the other hand, there are also things that cause sadness at first, but eventually lead to happiness. This negates your opinion that there can be things doing which inherently cause happiness, or doing which inherently cause unhappiness" "That's why I started off talking of essential nature, not

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things which essentially cause happiness or sadness. It is true that the simple way to conceive of our nature is to look at what causes us happiness or unhappiness - but once you start finding loopholes like you just did, we have to go deeper into the matter. Basically, what we mean by our nature is merely this that we all have various things that we need to do, various things that we cling to. You could think of it in this way that people are like ropes with knots in them. So although you could well argue that those knots are not inherently part of the rope, the fact is that they are there. And what we need to do here is to untie those knots. In a certain sense, happiness arises from untying those knots. It is true that sometimes we find ourselves doing things that make us unhappy in the long run but seem all right in the short term. But if you examine your emotions, you will be able to distinguish between the two kinds of happiness - where you solve the problem, and where you hide yourself form the problem. For example, numbing our minds with intoxicants is almost always going to be a case of avoiding the problem instead of solving it, which is why it may lead to short term 'happiness' but not to long term happiness. Also, another factor which may lead to apparent contradictions in our search for happiness is that various 'knots' of ours, so to speak, may not be independent of each other, but rather be entangled together in particularly large, vicious knots. I feel that the way to deal with that is to gain a better awareness of these, so that we are able to deal with them. For this, we need to gain more knowledge of ourselves by doing more

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introspection. But in practice, it is hard to figure out the exact nature of our needs that way. By the way, you were mentioning earlier how having many peaks compares to just doing things randomly: just doing things randomly would indeed be fine for someone who no longer has any knots, so to speak. This is because it would not really matter to them what they did or did not do. Anyway, as I was saying, it is hard to figure out the exact nature of our knots, so to speak. On the other hand, if we just look at what we want the next minute, we are confused by social engineering, political propaganda, and other such things only too easily - and the knots just get knottier. Thus, a pragmatic way to deal with all this seems to be like this: at any point in time, have a list of goals, 'peaks' so to say, all of which are reasonably non-trivial. Then, we work at directing all our energies towards achieving those goals; towards examining if those goals, along with any uninteded repercussions of achieving them, will really cause us happiness; and towards examining our motivations for wanting those goals. Often, it turns out that our motivations for doing something are different from what we initially assumed them to be. For instance, we may think that we want to save the world, whereas in reality we just want to be reassured that if we are able to save the world, we are not social rejects. Often, it happens that when our true underlying motivation for something is different from what we initially expected it to be, we are merely attracted to it by some sort of social conditioning or some other form of ignorance. So by watching the implications of said

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conditioning unfold in front of us, we are able to rid ourselves of this conditioning. Also, it sometimes turns out that although doing something is really in line with what we want, actually achieving it leads to certain unwanted consequences. If that happens, we look for alternatives. By this process, we end up with things that we really want to do for the right reasons, and which furthermore don't cause catastrophic unintended consequences. These are the things we follow up on. By working single-mindedly on them, not only do we untie the knot - so to speak - but we are also able to achieve a certain unity of mind, body and soul, which is often something which people desire in itself. This is the so-called 'heart of sword', which I will talk to you about later some day" "So we basically just examine our motives, then examine the consequences, then act, in that order?" "Actually, we begin to act, and examining the motives and the consequences has to be a continuous process because the more we act, the more information we collect that tells us about our motives and consequences"

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Kins and Katas "There are some who believe that happiness lies in the pursuit of pleasurable experiences, and to be happy we must 'live life to the full'. On the other hand, there are also plenty of people who believe that life is suffering, and that the purpose of life is to put an end to suffering by putting an end to our sensory perceptions. They withdraw from life and idealize the ability to be unmoved by things. In our land, these two have been called the Kinetics and Katastematics. Of these points of view, which one are you closer to? It would be interesting to get your views on the matter..." "Both views arise out of valid concerns and valid observations. But I would nevertheless say that both views also have their own drawbacks." "That's a diplomatic answer, and we know very well that diplomatic answers say much but mean little. This is why diplomacy is only used to gain time and not to solve issues." "Okay, okay... let's no go into political affairs here. In any case, you are well aware of my aversion to seeking political solutions to issues that are primarily about the views of an individual, not a state."

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"Of course. But this does not negate the fact that you were earlier giving a diplomatic answer, and are now trying to evade the issue altogether." "Fine then. It is diplomatic to say that both sides have valid points, but it is honest to say what those valid points on each side are. Thus, let me elaborate my views on the dichotomy between the Kinetic and Katastematic schools of thought..." "By all means, go ahead." "I will, if you will just let me... now, it is true that for someone who thinks of himself as being basically, essentially and inherently happy and blissful - and then goes ahead to see physical stimuli as something external to himself - these stimuli are merely a nuisance that disturb his inner peace and are thus to be avoided. Now, most people may not find most stimuli to be disruptive. But it is also true that almost everyone does feel disrupted in this sense by ugly sights, by ugly sounds, and by ugly smells not to mention other forms of ugly stimuli. Almost universally, we feel such ugliness to be a disruption to our relatively peaceful everyday life. In this, we are almost all in agreement with the Katastematic view. So really, what differentiates 'Katas' from other people is mainly the fact that many experiences that we find to be pleasant are also regarded as disruptive by them. This is because in pleasant experiences which occur to us as a spike, often

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the pleasure being received by a particular sense is used to hide the hurt that we are receiving in some other way. For instance, lights that are too bright can be pleasurable. But this pleasure hides the strain that looking at these bright lights causes on our eyes. Similarly, food that is very tasty often taxes the digestive system, and much loud music pains the ears. Because of these facts, what we regard as being a form of net pleasure can often turn out to be a pain overall if we also account for the pain that this pleasure hides. I also agree with this. Katas point out that because of these, the experiences that can be regarded as causing real pleasure are characterized not by extremes but by balance - and further, that it makes little sense to define balance as a positive existence: it is better regarded as the absence of various kinds of imbalances. For instance, balance between heat and cold is characterized by neither heat nor cold, but by the absence of perceptible heat or cold. Since this balance is something that can only be characterized negatively, it makes no sense to talk of it being created by the addition of something external. Rather, it makes far more sense to regard physical acts as removing specific forms of imbalance that are disrupting the natural balance. Further, while balance is regarded as basic, the imbalances too must no doubt be caused by external impulses. Therefore, while external impulses can remove certain problems in the form of imbalances, other such external forces are the ones who created these imbalances in the first place. So then this is why, to preserve the balance - because they respect the balance -

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and realizing the disruptive effect of external stimuli on this balance, Katas suppress their dependence on external stimuli as a source of happiness and rather seek it in the balance they cultivate within themselves. This is why they withdraw from the world. You had been diplomatic earlier. But now, through your words, you have clearly given away the fact that you are in fact wholly a Kata. Therefore..." "No, wait. I never said that!" "But you kept saying: 'I agree with this part', and 'I agree with that part'! Is this not the same as saying that you are a Kata?" "Believing in some aspects of a philosophy does not make one a follower as long as one disagrees with some other fundamental aspects of it. For instance, I agree with Katas that what human beings seek is ultimately balance not excess. I also agree that many experiences that are traditionally considered 'happy experiences' are not so, once one accounts not just for their negative consequences in the future (which I am inclined to discount since they won't matter if for example one dies early, and who has seen the future?), but also for the hidden costs in the present itself which lead to those negative consequences in the future. But although I agree with these, I do not believe in becoming a hermit, nor do I

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believe that all experiences that perturb us are forms of evil that need to be avoided." "But you yourself said that what we ultimately aim for is some sort of balance!" "Ultimately, yes we do all aim for balance. However, most of us are born with fundamental desires, goals to life that stick to us like a knot sticks to a rope. Indeed, there is a theory that unless one has such fundamental drives, one is not born. These are not negated by the fact that later on, under the influence of other people and of sensory titillation, we also develop a hell lot of new desires and ambitions that we wouldn't really have if we had the courage to become hermits and control our senses for some time. Unfortunately, these so far outnumber the genuine ambitions in most people that Katas assume that all desires and ambitions are like such froth and smoke. However, there is generally no smoke without fire and no froth without liquids. If you leave a glass alone, the froth will die out after some time. But the liquid will remain. Similarly, asceticism can remove our socially imposed desires - but those are not the sum total of our ambitions. Unlike froth, milk does not disappear by letting it be - it merely becomes sour. As another example, a knotted rope will not untie itself: we have to work at it. Similarly, our true goals and ambitions once revealed need to be acted upon - because they will not go away by being ignored. Working towards and achieving such goals of life can make us

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perturbed - but unlike that produced by chasing after stimuli, this is a good kind of perturbation (you can even argue that these lead to a more basic, fundamental type of balance). I believe that these essential aims must be dealt with proactively, by working hard towards them before they curdle inside us and make us into bitter, repressed versions of ourselves. So even though I don't believe in doing stuff just for kicks, I am a firm believer in action when you know what you are working towards. I believe that it is this understanding - that there are some things we need to work at instead of escape - that guides the Kinetic school of thought. And this is where I do agree with them: once we know what we fundamentally seek - our goals in life, if you will - we are better off working hard towards them rather than trying to escape everything." "But what when we have fulfilled all our fundamental aims in life? At least you accept that as a good time to escape everything?" "Once we have fulfilled our fundamental goals in life, it makes sense to eschew the desire for more Kinetic pleasures and to rather focus on balance, harmony and Katastematic pleasures. You could say that I believe in doing enough so that we have to do no more. But I feel that true harmony would lie in 'letting things be', which is fundamentally different from 'escaping everything'." "The way you make it sound, the ultimate end of this

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balanced and harmonious life after attaining all your life's goals is just death, since that is the epitome of 'letting things be'." "I don't deny that it is death. Death it is, but fundamentally different from the death you get from being suddenly taken away by injury or illness. Also, it is fundamentally different from the frustration in dying without accomplishing your life's aims - realizing only at the end the futility of trying to repress your goals instead of trying to accomplish them. All the kinds of death I mentioned here are traumatic events, if not for the one who is dying then for those close to him - in other words, they are the opposite of 'letting things be'. Therefore, I would say that my way of doing things does end in death, but it is a good death: and since all paths that do not end in eternal torment or eternal boredom do end in death, it only makes sense to seek a good death after a good life."

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Will "I have heard you highly praise philosophers of the 'Will'. But those who see the world in terms of Will take two distinct approaches to it: Some feel that it is the cause of strife and suffering, and thus seek to negate it. On the other hand, there are those who see Will as representing not just power but also joy and happiness, pleasure and victory. These seek to maximize the Will and look down upon those who want to neutralize it. So, since there are two diametrically opposite ways of treating this Will that you are so fond of, which of these two ways are you more inclined towards?" "Will being the drive to live, for consciousness to express itself - it seems odd that any would find issue with the will. But this opposition is easier to understand on contemplation. The Will, being the urge for consciousness to express itself, is witnessed most strongly during the struggle of the will to express itself. It is but natural to feel disgust at this struggle, to wish for the struggle to end. But a war can end with either side winning. Similarly, the suffering of The War Of The Will can end not only in complete happiness but also in complete despair. To win is to get rid of the manifestation of the Will in the struggle to express consciousness, but to do this through the victory of the pure Will in this struggle. Death does not equal defeat. Death after fulfilling your purpose is victory itself,

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for what point is there is there in being alive for no purpose? Someone who walks a path where he knows that he will likely get killed, for the sake of living life his own way, has done a better job of expressing the Will than one who cringes and clings to life by changing himself in myriad ways, leading an unhappy existence just to survive. The weak-willed says: 'I am not worthy of this world. So I will con it into finding me worthy. For this I will pretend to be who I am not, even to myself'. The strong-willed man says: 'This is who I am. If this is not acceptable to the world, then it is equally meaningful to say that the world did not deserve to have me live in it, as to say that I did not deserve to live in the world. If I am incompatible with the world, I will just live in my own way until this incompatibility causes my death' A human being being an inextricable part of the world whatever good or evil he does, every atom everywhere in the universe has some share in it. If one gets killed before completing his life's work even though he tried, let him not be unhappy - for the world brought about the conditions that made such a life's work possible, and then the world itself took it away. The man having done his job, he has no share of credit in the conditions existing for the work to be possible, nor does he share any blame for the work not coming about due to accidental occurrences not in his power. The only thing that matters is what he did with what

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was in his power. As he has no right over the rest, he cannot be said to have any responsibility for it either."

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Metaphor "I don't know why people keep using lies and metaphors, but I am also terrified of the boredom I would feel if everyone was straightforward in what they said - instead of resorting to such cheap linguistic tricks." "Some people regard a metaphor as something different from truth. However, a statement is not always true in itself. if I say 'the sky is blue' on seeing a blue sky, I would be saying the truth if I told it to someone who realized that all I meant was that it would look blue if you look at it directly upwards when the sun is up in the sky. However, suppose I knew that I was telling it to a child who I know from past experience would interpret the statement as 'the sky is constituted of a blue substance', and thus would develop the expectation that when he would travel in a plane the next night, the shiny buildings he would be looking down on would have a bluish tinge. If I told him that 'the sky is blue', would I not be telling him a lie? Wouldn't I better off telling him that the sky is not blue in itself but looks blue because of other colors being absorbed by the air? This ambiguity in statements being true or false exists firstly because in natural language, even individual words don't have fixed, well-defined meanings... and when they are combined together their meaning can be highly context-dependent, dependent also on the speaker, listener and the relationship between them... in this way,

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any use of natural language is less similar to that of an artificial language. It is more like a game, where you can manipulate the state of the listener by the words you are speaking, according to the initial state of the listener and his preferences. Whenever you speak, you have some objective regarding how you want the state of the listener to change... in general, if you want the listener to end up in a state where he has more understanding regarding something, then you can be said to be truthful about that particular subject. Similarly, if you want the listener to end up being more ignorant, confused or misguided about any particular subject, then you could be said to be untruthful about that subject. If you speak in a way that he is equally likely to become more or less knowledgeable about a particular subject, then you may be said to be neither truthful nor untruthful - rather, your approach would orthogonal to truthfulness regarding the given subject. Similarly, if you are aiming to make his state change so that he is in a better position to achieve the goals that he considers to be ends in themselves, then you are playing the role of benefactor towards him. On the other hand, if you want to change his state in such a way that he is worse off in this way, then you are playing the role of his enemy. Someone who does not believe in violence for its own sake would therefore try to speak in such a way as to make a person better equipped to achieve his goals mostly this would involve making him more, not less knowledgeable about various subjects than he would otherwise be ... unless he has explicit reason to cause him

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harm (to prevent even more harm to others). One example is that if A was asked by B, "where is C"? and he knew that with high probability if B was told the right answer he would disbelieve it and instead make up another theory about C to believe, while he may or may not believe other answers, then A would not be beneficial or truthful to B by telling him the right answer - because telling him the right answer would make him believe a wrong answer, rather than the right one. Thus, A, if he is really B's well-wisher, will keep silent - this way, B may not know the answer, but at least he will know for sure that he does not know the answer. Perhaps this will incline him to search for the answer in other ways that could work - or to give up on the question if it is not really important to him, secure in the knowledge that he does not know and does not care. Even if the question is important to him and there is no other way to arrive at the answer, he is probably better off knowing at least that he does not know the answer, rather than not knowing even that. Thus, a metaphor is not really an untruth. Probably no statement is able to convey the full truth about something at all times. When more direct means have been exhausted, a metaphor is merely a more indirect and listener-specific means for us to affect the state of the listener. In this, a metaphor is like any other statement in terms of its truth value - it can be used in such a way as to make the listener have greater or lesser understanding of any of the involved subject matters. Now, a metaphor does

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run the risk that while it does increase the understanding of the particular target we had in mind, it may also be read by others whom we didn't account for - in whom it merely causes befuddlement. For this purpose, it is generally a good idea to avoid metaphors or to have some specific factors either in the subject or in the style of presentation which filter the possible audience to something manageable for us to direct the metaphor towards them, at least if we are being particular about the kind of effect we want to produce in the audience. On the other hand, there is something to be said for the use of metaphors to purposely have a very wide range of possibilities regarding the effects they can have on the audience ('layers of meaning'), or merely for the variety of effects they can have on ourselves. This is a very interesting art-form, but it probably makes little sense to confuse such metaphorical statements with the ones that have to do with clarifying or obfuscating understanding of any subject matter. Also, if we want to deal with some subject matter that deals with experiences or ideas which may be entirely new to the audience, we may have little choice but to use metaphors. However, metaphors being volatile tools that can cause very different effects on different individuals - it is probably a good idea in these cases to filter the audience in some way so as to have a decent idea of what impact our metaphors will have on them."

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True Fanatic "I am so pissed off at the people who think that only their point of view are right, and that others who don't share their views need to be all killed." "Well, different people do bring in different subjective experiences and thus the ability to think on things on their own. In practice, the will is using different minds to increase its understanding of the world and to better manifest itself in it. Two points of view give more scope for understanding than one. Killing off and suppressing other people for having minor differences with your views just means losing the benefits of the experiences that they had gained. Thus, it is not reasonable to start off with the assumption that we must destroy all that is different from us" "Yes, that is what I am talking about: peace and tolerance. I wish we could all just accept all people accepting what they want and acting as they want" "Oh really?" "Why not?" "Say there is someone who wants to kill you and all that you value. Or if we do not go to that extent, just think of

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someone who wants to treat everyone who thinks like you as second-class citizens. Would you still just tolerate him?" "I suppose I should... after all, it is the tolerant and peaceloving thing to do" "Well, let me ask you something... if you have come to your views after a lot of consideration, don't you think they deserve to at least have a chance at existence? By letting violent people walk all over you, you are not doing something very great: you are merely promoting more violence for the future, almost to the same extent as you would by beating up arbitrary people as you come across them. While tolerating everyone is possibly a good point of view to start from, we nevertheless need to have a way of dealing with others that does not wipe itself out. Thus, we do need to establish political and legal conventions for society." "But, how do you figure out what those conventions should be?" "We can think of some guidelines, but the full picture changes according to the times and the laws too change with them. One way to adaptively change our conventions with the times seems to be for people who believe in things have at least some conviction in them without caring about this that they have become opinionated. This is needed because once again, if you don't fight for your well-

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considered beliefs, there will nevertheless be others fighting for their own beliefs, well-considered or not. I think a sensible way to do it is not to assume that others are evil for thinking differently, but accepting that your own ideas are the only set of ideas about whose being wellconsidered you can be reasonably sure, you need to take on the responsibility for the existence of your ideas, for the benefit of the Will in general." "But all this still seems not tolerant enough. I was talking to this guy yesterday and he told me that all religions and philosophies say the same thing, so it is useless to distinguish among them." "While I agree that saying that you alone are right and everyone else is wrong and needs to be eliminated - is something of a fanatical idea, the same cannot be said for merely momentarily ensuring the continuity of the stream of ideas you came across and examined and found to be useful: comparing the latter to the former is like comparing someone who loves his own family to one who wants to kill everyone not in his immediate family: one shows the will cooperating with itself, the other shows it fighting against itself. Also, while it may be fanatical to believe that only your views are valuable (and the experiences of others can be thrown away), it is far more fanatical to say that all religions and philosophies say the same thing. It is clear there are differences between them, for example some believe in a God, some don't. Some believe in tribal

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superiority for themselves, some don't. Some believe in rebirth, and some don't. Like this, you can find many more differences between any two prominent points of view. To say that they are the same is like someone saying 'The sky is blue, but it is also black. So blue and black are the same color'. Of course, the visible color of the sky changes from blue to black from day to night, but to imply that this makes the colors the same is clearly misleading. Similarly, the differences between various points of view are there for all to see. So if someone says that all religions are the same, chances are that he is merely trying to make a fool out of you. But if that is not the case, it shows him up to be a fanatic. Someone who wants to destroy all other points of view may not appreciate the value of other points of view, but at least he can see that other points of view exist. On the other hand, this guy who likes to believe that all points of view are the same, is so fanatical about his beliefs, so afraid of anything else, so closed with his mind - he refuses to even accept that these other points of view exist. This is the extent of his fear and revulsion towards other points of view. Compared to the one who merely wants to kill others, he is by far the bigger fanatic. If to him, all points of view appear to be the same as his own, it is simply because he has never cultivated the ability to listen to other points of view. To the man who grew up listening only to English, all other languages may seem like badly-spoken English. This does not mean that the proficient speaker of Chinese who just greeted him is merely a bad English speaker, trying hard to learn English - it merely shows that there is more

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than one language in this world. Nor does this example do any credit to the English speaker who can't even concieve of other languages. Such is the case of people who only manage to conceive of the doctrines they were indoctrinated in as children - even when they hear other, opposing points of view."

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Mystics "Some day, we should write a book that puts everyone at peace, solves their perplexities, and enlightens them. Don't you think that this is an aim worth striving for?" "Even if we ourselves were at peace, free of perplexity and enlightened, I do not think that such an act is even possible. This has mainly to do with the fact that these things - peace of mind, freedom from perplexity and enlightenment - are experiential, not theoretical in nature. So while books, just like many other things, can guide one - help them in finding these things, they will have different effects on different people. Ultimately, how far one goes depends not on how much knowledge they acquired but on what they did with the knowledge that they acquired." "In other words, you are a mystic. Does it ever occur to you that the habit of mystification that goes with this may be the reason why writing such a book may be beyond you? Perhaps you are just too esoteric for popular appeal." "Popular appeal cannot be diverted towards a subject merely by skillful use of words, when it was not there to begin with. However, while you may be right in calling me a mystic, I don't believe in mystification. If you think I do, then you are mistaken."

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"Ha, liar! Everyone knows that mysticism and mystification go hand-in-hand." "In practice, perhaps. But it is not necessarily so. Anyone who expresses their ideas is like someone who has made a door from one place to another. We call writers, speakers good or bad according to our impression of the destination of this door. Now, a mystic is like a door-maker who understands that merely looking at a door will not get one through it, and so generally gives little indication on the door of what lies behind. Thus, this is also associated with few people going into the door. An ordinary non-mystic would give some kind of indication as to the destination, perhaps letting you see through it. Some people may be so entranced by the view they get from looking at the door that they do not bother to cross over. A mystifier, on the other hand, would purposely mislead others on where the doors lead, or more commonly indicate it through puzzles that are notoriously hard to crack and terribly easy to misunderstand. I am like a door-maker who has made a door with no frames and kept it always open; as a result many people don't realize that this is a door at all that needs to be crossed. Of those who do, many misunderstand the destination not because of any trick I played, but simply because they expect it to be puzzling even when it is not. Consequently, few people bother to enter. But I am not an ordinary mystic, since I keep my door always open. On the other hand, I do understand the importance of actually passing through the gate instead of

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just looking through it, and I do get few clients. Thus, I am basically a mystic. On the other hand, since I no way mislead others about their destination, I am certainly not a mystifier - even though many get confused by expecting a trick where there is none." "So you are saying that your gate alone is not selective in terms of power, intelligence, etc. and yet gets few entrants?:" "My gate is the most selective of all, since it selects based on the willingness of people to enter it. It is the only gate not yet entered mistakenly by anyone."

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Fraudmen "All right, so you have said earlier that if God exists, it would be very hard indeed for us to make any meaningful statements about him, or even if it is 'him' or 'they'." "Yes. Even notions like counting imply a level of understanding of the subject of said counting which I don't think I have regarding God." "So then, my question is that there is this guy Baba Devanand who is basically what we call a 'godman'. His followers variously believe that he is a great teacher of a path to enlightenment called 'Dev Yog', then there are others who believe he is the incarnation of their deity 'Anand Dev'. Then, there are also others who interpret his speeches to mean that he is actually God himself. This looks awfully convenient to me. Your arguments have convinced me that by definition, we have no way to decide any claims about God, since if we could decide such claims it would contradict the transcendent Godliness that is assumed when we talk of God. On the other hand, while there are no logical reasons to accept or reject his claims, there is a clear emotional advantage in believing that God lives a few blocks away and will do our bidding in exchange for a small monetary donation given in cash. Since logic goes nowhere and emotions decree that I believe whatever I find to be convenient, I think I will just

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go and join him." "This line of reasoning could mistakenly be used to justify belief in godmen form my perspective, but I think there is a subtle difference: we may not be able to make positive statements about God, but we can negative statements. Can God be helpless, sick, or subject to birth and death? Can the creator be the created? Not likely. Basically, what I am saying here is that we may not claim much knowledge of God, but we do know enough about Swami Devanand. Presumably, he needs to eat, to sleep, to drink. He was born, gets sick and will most likely die like all other godmen in the past. These facts are inconsistent with his fantastic claims. But even otherwise it is a matter of common sense that anything in the observed world is created by God if he exists, and the creator is not the same as the creator. So if anyone says that some persons, trees or planets are God/s we can straightaway reject their claims. Especially in the case of godmen, not only is there good cause to rule out the possibility that the statement is being made in good faith, we also have good reasons why he would make the statement knowing full well that it is false - fame, power, money. It makes sense to take the reasonable explanation over obviously false ones. This is why as a general rule it seems like a good idea to beware of godmen."

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God "But the stuff you said about being able to make negative statements if not positive ones about God - is that not also a strong argument for Monotheism?" "Why?" "Consider a table, for instance. When we have not examined it much - or from a distance - it is one table. But as we come closer, we may note that it consists of parts, eg. four legs, one drawer and one top making a total of six pieces. Then we can keep going further and further until we come up with a multitude of planks and then end up with gazillions of atoms. So in a sense once we gain a certain level of understanding of an object, we further break it down into various parts to get a number of such parts. With number of God/s, even once you reject 0 since the order in the universe - or something else - makes you believe in God, you still have no basis to cut the concept into various parts." "Because of the transcendental nature of the concept of God." "Precisely. And thus, it makes more sense to go with 1 than with any other answer."

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"I guess this makes sense. I have newfound respect for monotheism, at least over polytheism. I still find agnosticism more justified at least for me given my life experiences, though." "Yes, me too. But isn't this line of reasoning eventually meaningless since we can come to a proof for the nonexistence of God?" "How is that?" "The age-old question: can God create a stone so heavy he cannot lift it?" "Of course, there is hardly any justification for assuming that notions like 'lift' make any sense for God. But even if they did, the question is meaningless because of what 'can' means. First of all, let us agree that making such a rock can happen only accidentally or intentionally. Can God create such a rock accidentally? Presumably not, since the notion of God doing stuff accidentally does not really seem to make much sense - whatever forces we tend to consider as causing accidents would all generally fall at least under the agency of God, by most understandings of 'God'. But even intentionally, if we assume that God created the universe then he probably also created the rules that govern it, including logical ones. So he would not want to create such a rock, since if he wanted to do that, he would not have made logic in such a

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way that this concept seems illogical. So there can be no case where God creates such a rock. But this would not be a limitation to God's omnipotence because God would also never want to create such a rock - so a situation would never arise where God wanted to do something and was unable to do so - and omnipotence only makes sense as the absence of such situations, not as the ability to do stuff randomly (doing things unintentionally is probably a good indication of a lack of omnipotence)."

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Opposites "What is the opposite of light?" "The opposite of light is darkness. Everyone knows this" "Would it mean that there is no thing less similar to light than darkness?" "Of course" "But is not darkness more similar to light than, say, a sound is?" "What kind of question is this? Light is comparable to dark, but it is not even comparable to a sound. It's like comparing apples to oranges" "Of course, two apples would be more similar to each other than an apple and an orange - which would sort of support my point - but why can't we compare light to sound? Both are sensory stimuli" "But not of the same kind" "That's the point. Light is a sensory stimulus that is visual in nature Sound is a sensory stimulus that is NOT visual in nature. On the other hand, darkness like light is also a

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sensory stimulus that is visual in nature. So wouldn't a sound be more appropriate than darkness as the opposite of light?" "I guess if you put it that way, then yes" "But why stop there? Like this, I could take something that is not even a sensory stimulus. Then you would find THAT to be the real opposite. Again, if I find something common between light and its so-called opposite, I could find something that does not share this characteristic. Then you would find that to be the opposite. I can carry through this process at least till I claim that 'nothing' is the true opposite to anything, because anything is 'something', while 'nothing' is not something." "But that would make no sense. How can all the myriad things have 'nothing' as their opposite? This is pointless" "Fair enough. I claim that this is happening because of a misunderstanding on your part at the very beginning regarding what is an 'opposite'. An 'opposite' of something say x, is not something that is least similar to it, rather it is something that is most similar to it. An opposite shares every characteristic of the original, save for one. In this way, it defines the original, by creating a class with only two elements: the original and the opposite. If we could not make the distinction between the two things in that set, we would simply merge them into one - or break the set into a

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continuum from one to the other. So instead of 'light' and 'dark' we can simply have 'brightness'. This is how close opposites are to each other - the define each other. One cannot exist without the other. Interestingly, not all concepts can be broken down like this into opposites. For example, for 'light' there is only one thing closest to it 'darkness'. But for 'blue', there would be at least two more things in the set that is closest to it - 'green', and 'red'. Similarly, for a circle, all regular polygons can be said to be in the set of things that are closest to it. Alternatively, we could even consider all ellipses having the same area as it to constitute the set closest to it. Either way, the set closest to it does not consist of just two elements. That is why there is no such thing as the opposite of a circle or the opposite of 'blue'. On the other hand, it is also true that the notion of 'closest set' is not always well-defined - like with circles. So our notion of 'opposite' may depend on our notion of 'closest', but our notion of 'closest' in turn depends on our conceptual framework"

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Logic "I am tired of the arbitrariness of life: oh, how I wish that everything I did, everything I thought was determined by logic! In fact I find that illogic lies at the root of the world's problems. If everyone just thought logically, everyone would necessarily agree with each other. Would this not be great? This way we would see the end of wars and also presumably the end of other maladies like hunger and poverty. Just think: would it not be great?" "Your line of thought seems to hinge on the assumption that if everyone thought logically, then everyone would agree. Right?" "Yes, I do assume that." "So then, let me ask you first-off: what is this logic?" "Well, certain things follow from certain other things. That is logic." "...and what about the things they follow from? Where do they come from?" "Other things." "Does this go on or does it end somewhere?"

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"Of course, it must. Otherwise our statements have no basis." "Then there are certain basic assumptions you too have to make, on which all the others hinge. Different people can have different such cores of beliefs." "But don't you think that false ones will have an inconsistent set of core axioms? " "Some may, some may not - given that by false beliefs, you refer to systems of belief which you differ from, while holding on to a particular 'fully logical' system of belief. But it is entirely possible for various different systems of belief to each be internally consistent but conflicting with all the others at some point or the other. If such multiplicities of logical consistent systems can exist even in a simplified realm like mathematics, then how much more likely they are to be in 'real life'. This is because I think that while logic - meaning logical consistency, is a necessary characteristic of any meaningful system of belief, it is far from sufficient. Further, it does not in general uniquely determine your whole system of belief." "I guess this is also why it is actually possible for two people following entirely logical systems of belief to be constantly at loggerheads with each other"

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Magic "I am a believer in science. I won't believe that you can do things by your magical mumbo-jumbo. There must be a logical explanation behind it. I will find it and then kill you." "Logical explanation? Of course there is: there is certainly a scientific explanation. But I doubt you would be able to comprehend it." "???" "Consider the machines you use now. Are not their sizes regularly reducing? Are not you progressing in a way where the way you interface with your machines becomes more and more intuitive?" "Interface?" "How you interact with it" "Yes, I guess all of that is true. But you know, we still deal with them physically. We don't just mumble at them" "True, but that is only because your technology is so primitive. Have you never heard of Aeon?" "The empire that spanned worlds? Of course, I have heard

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of it - a legend, to suppress common people" "Just because it is used to suppress people does not negate the fact that it has a basis - or at least used to. My own ancestors originated in Aeon - Ruined Aeon, they call it now: but that is only because their psychological progress refused to keep up with their technological progress" "What does that mean?" "It means that you can't give guns to thousands of monkeys and hope they will use it only as a deterrent – technological and psychological being the two legs of progress: the dominance of either one leading to imbalance, falling over and starting over. The point being that while it is true that Aeonites were savages in many ways, it is nevertheless true that they had very highly developed technology. Not only did their machines eventually become so small and yet so resilient that they have survived for the millennia since the Great War encompassing all, seen by none - but partly due to their small size newer ways were found to interface with them. Eventually they settled on talking: just say it and it will be done" "That would seem reasonable, given that our technology too is progressing towards ease of use - but stop trying to make a fool of me. I know for a fact that your acolytes

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spend years learning your spells. That is the very opposite of 'ease of use'" "Nice observation. But what you have failed to observe are the following: firstly, ease of use generally increases only during times of relative peace. In times of impending war, people become warier of the ability for technology to be used against them. Also, you have failed to account for the fact that with more technology, while the things you used to do earlier become easier, you generally also get the ability to do new things - technology works simply to make there possible, so it does not necessarily make them very easy. Therefore, as people hankered after more features, difficult-to-use advanced functionality did get added to our 'machines' - and once the wars broke out in earnest, this became the rule rather than the exception" "However, with this, we would expect only the really powerful spells to be hard. With you, all your spells are hard" "False. You are mistaken. We do have easy spells. We just don't get around to using them around our enemies, like yourself. Anyway, as I was saying, not only are the commands made harder to know, our forefathers also put in certain voice-detection facilities that would enable our machines to only respond to commands by people whose voice patterns 'match' that of their ancestors in certain ways. This generally acts as a protection against our own

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technology being used against us. This is also why we have to sometimes turn out people who seem to have 'no talent at magic', or to deal with 'rogue magicians' - their voice patterns match those of our ancestors by a quirk of fate..." "No, no... you can't just match voices like that. That is not science, that in itself is magic. So all you have been saying is that your ancestors too were magicians..." "No! They were scientists - they followed the scientific method, not magical thinking where things happen randomly without cause. They were just many steps ahead of us" "Couldn't this plan get seriously messed up if someone stole your babies, for example?" "No: even though they had the 'talent', they would never be trained by us: you can be sure of that" "But what if the machines themselves go rogue? They are, after all, machines. Do you guys still know, after all these years, what made them tick?" "That's the irony here. We are so much more powerful than you as long as the machines work well, but once they start misfiring in a major way, they could end up killing us all, including us Aeonites"

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"So do something about it: destroy those machines" "Sorry, no can do. Not only can we not see them, we have no idea of how they work. We do know how to work them with our spells, but none of our books give us a spell to make those nanobots self-destruct...." "..." "And even if we could, would we? I am not sure..."

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Technology "If technology keeps on improving, as our understanding of the workings of the world also improves, the condition of human being would generally improve. So why shouldn't we just focus all our energies on the improvement of technology?" "Some people believe, and I too once believed, that technology would solve all the problems of of the world, all by itself. But this has changed now. Although I agree that generally we would probably get things like better health care and better means of production, that would only mean that less people die due to human inability. More people may end up suffering due to human malice in the form of wars, etc. and with more free time, people would end up having more time to make other people miserable by politics and bitching. So real development lies in augmenting the improvement in technology by the reduction in human malice. However, the notion of forcibly removing malice from someone and still regarding them as the same human you started out with is absurd on the face of it. Thus, the onus is on individual human beings to take up the responsibility to remove malice from themselves." "However, this does not mean that scientific progress is something to be rejected. It is hardly possible for human beings with natural curiosity to do without explanations -

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and in the absence of rational explanations all we are left with is superstition. So although we also need to work on removing malice, we are better off with science than without it. An exception can be made to taking funding from governments and corporations for science, because in those specific cases work is likely to get directed towards some means of destruction. However, there seems to be no harm in trying to satisfy our curiosity by privately funded work, especially if it is self-funded. It is possible that as people in general want the results of scientific work but not to reduce their inner malice, eventually science will result in weapons that will be misused, but this would only mean that humanity was still not mature enough for that knowledge. After near-complete destruction, we can only rebuild and hope that as we have not given up on self-improvement, by the time we reach the same stage in the next cycle, humans with the same level of technology will have less malice. In this way, humans will eventually reach a level of non-maliciousness that makes technology practically harmless. In the process many lives will be lost, but let us not forget that these many lives would anyway be lost due to human brutality - even without science. Further, consciousness itself never dies: it merely ceases to be able to express itself more completely in the material world - this being the reason why any death is a hateful thing (murder even more so because it signifies the will turning on itself). But the net result here of improvement in technology - even in multiple cycles of

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growth and destruction - is that consciousness becomes able to better express itself in the material world. Thus it is the very opposite of a death."

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Negative Statements "I have known you for a long time now - and whenever I ask you about anything really important, you answer with something that is not an answer at all." “Is that so?” "Yes: consider the time I asked you about your beliefs regarding God: You did not say, "God exists", "God does not exist", or even that "many Gods exist". You only said that the notion of God is ill-defined, not something a human mind is able to deal with - and that even the notion of number as applied to God(s) is meaningless. You did say that historically and even currently, the belief in God is largely driven by socio-political factors which have no great regard for the truth, but then you also said that the rudiments of theism that lie in the observation that the world looks like a strutured place with rules and laws, not merely a realm of chaos - are things you agree with. Then you expressed the fact that notions like God favoring certain people or acts among His creations, or an anthromorphic God who eats and shits - are notions that you find to be repulsive." "That's right, but -" "Also consider the time I asked you about absolute truth

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and you dismissed the question as bogus, or the times when I asked you about what actions are moral and to what extent - and you not only came up with the notion that only intentional acts can be considered to have any moral content, but also that while certain kinds of acts lead to certain kinds of results, it is meaningless to talk of a universal morality due to the differences - both innate and environmental - among human beings. You gave me this nonsense about how different people have different moral ends, and thus different courses of action make sense to try to achieve those different ends." "Yes, I said all that." "But don't you think that through all this, you have merely been bluffing me all this time? Out of all these situations, in none have you given me a straightforward, objectively meaningful answer. You have always twisted and turned the words in my question to make a new question, and then answered that. Does this not mean that you are in fact unable to answer my original question? Aren't you merely using involved wordplay to avoid admitting to that, and pushing your own agenda without any intention to deal with the questions I posed? I get it now, you are so full of yourself that no matter what anyone else wants to talk to you about, you just manipulate the conversation according to your own agenda - while forgetting the initial point the other guy wanted to discuss about. Why does it have to be like this? Why is it always about you, you, you? What

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about other people? What about me??? I hate you!" "Look, you are getting carried away here. While it's true that I do have my own set of beliefs, my own understanding of the world according to which I act, it does not mean that I am always trying to push it, regardless of what the other person wants to talk about. It is true that I don't like talking about stuff that does not interest me, like gossip about celebrities. But when I find someone going on about something like that, I don't try to cunningly steer the conversation to subjects that interest me. You know me well enough to know that I simply refuse to discuss things that are of no interest to me - I don't try to prevent others from talking about them either. So when you start a discussion about something and I join in it - whether it is about nature and number of God or about morality - it is because I am interested in the topic in the first place. It is true that sometimes, I try to rephrase some questions that you raise before looking for a solution to them, but I have never rephrased the question in such a way as to deviate from its initial topic. Rather, I do this to question hidden assumptions in the original question." "But why should this sort of thing be needed?" "Simply because a question can be phrased does not mean that it makes sense. For instance, you have some familiarity with mathematics. Sometime in the distant past, someone must have asked the following question to

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someone: "What is the largest prime number?". Now, you know and I know that this question is meaningless since there is no such thing as the largest prime number. Does this mean that someone who was unable to come with a number which is the largest prime number is necessarily ignorant about the topic in question here? Suppose someone went ahead and told the questioner that there is no such thing as "the largest prime number", and suppose that he was able to show why this is the case. Such a person would not have answered the original question, but nevertheless he would have given the most meaningful response to the question. This does not show an ignorance about the issue, nor an unwillingness to grapple with it. Rather, by finding the problems inherent in the original question, you show an even greater understanding - and willingness to get your hands dirty - than someone who is merely willing to deal with the question as posed. This is because in some cases it is only like this that a meaningful response to the original question can be found: thrashing about your arms in a wild attempt to find a straightforward answer to the original question does not contribute anything to our understanding of the subject matter. On the other hand, the process of questioning our inherent assumptions due to badly-phrased questions often does more to increase our understanding of a topic, than finding straightforward answers to questions that do make sense. For instance, it is possible to give a straightforward answer to the question, "what is the smallest prime number?", but the answer to that contributes essentially nothing to

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anyone's understanding of what a prime number is. However, the scope of our understanding generally increases greatly by understanding how "what is the largest prime number?", is a badly-phrased question because for every prime number there is a greater prime number. These are mere examples of how questioning questions often provides greater understanding than answering them. This is why I don't hesitate to do that all the time, like in the examples you provided... and just like in the example on prime numbers, I believe that my approach to the questions you asked is more meaningful than merely looking for straightforward answers."

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Categorical Imperative "You keep talking about various subjects, but the Categorical Imperative has guided me through my life. Do you even know what it is? If so, what do you think of it?" "Much has been made of the Categorical Imperative. The Golden Rule, 'do unto others as you would have them do unto you', has been a basic moral principle since historic times. The Categorical Imperative is its generalization in a more useful form. However, when we examine what it is, we are left with the feeling that it seems to be void of any content. 'Act in such a way that it could become a universal law', in other words, „act in such a way that if it became a universal law, you would be fine with it‟. Now, someone who acts nicely with others because he wishes everyone was pleasant and helpful to others would clearly be following the categorical imperative. But what of someone, say Julie, who always hurts others so that she herself may advance? Is she not acting according to the categorical imperative? Her universal rule is as follows: 'act in such a way that Julie may advance, even at the cost of others'. Is this rule really something she would not like to become a universal law? I don't think so. She would be as eager to make that a universal law as anyone else would be, to make their own categorical law into a universal law. If you say that this sort of law should be disqualified from being a universal law because it makes specific reference to the

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one following the law, consider that some combination of things like height, weight, gender, age, birthplace, name, etc. can be found which uniquely determine Julie. Now, suppose she thought of laws like this: all other things being the same, people whose height is more similar to 5 feet 5 inches (Julie's height) deserve better treatment than those whose height is more different than it, similarly for weight being more similar to 140 pounds (her weight), and so on regarding all the characteristics that would be needed to uniquely determine her. Would such a set of laws be acceptable? If yes, consider that in the end they combine to show that Julie must always get better treatment than anyone else. You could argue that it would also require her sympathies to extend to some extent to people who are more similar to her, but then consider that treating people similar to you better than those different than you is merely a political ploy that must be used by anyone wanting to advance at all costs to others, for the sake of making alliances. Also, we could argue that she is not necessarily just treating those similar to herself better, she is also treating those different to her worse. If no, consider that if the whole set of such rules is not acceptable, is even a single such rule acceptable? If she, being a woman, is always on the lookout for means to benefit women in general at the expense of men through unscrupulous means, is it acceptable? If not, would the

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same be acceptable for a man to do? You could say that both are unacceptable, and that this shows that generally such laws should relate to something that it not specific to the physical constitution of individuals, but should rather be possible to treat as a purely moral issue. But surely, people's opinions on morality are also affected by their physical constitutions. For instance, we would reasonably expect a population of high-testosterone individuals to have different moral impulses than a population of lowtestosterone individuals. Additionally, even in the absence of ill-intent, our views on moral issues would undoubtedly be informed by our personal experiences. If we accept that ruling out categorical laws based on our subjective constitution and personal experiences also rules out categorical laws based on what we might consider moral impulses, the question arises: do we even leave any valid candidates for moral laws? In the previous example on women's issues, we can say the problem is that men would probably not consciously agree to following such a law. But if it is votes we want, how many is good enough? Do we want something on which we want a total consensus? If so, we would have to consider it to be an impossibility, because some madman somewhere will oppose anything. If we want only a simple majority, then it is no different from a kind of democracy, which though a very useful political tool (probably for this very purpose), cannot be considered very useful to dictate

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our personal behavior, for if the guiding principles behind the actions of individuals could be determined by democratic means, then there would be no room for dissent or innovation - we probably would never have had even fire. In any case, it seems intuitively obvious that we are not ants. Also, for the vast majority of interesting questions, it would be exceedingly difficult to poll a representative sample regarding which way to go on it, since most of them could probably not even understand the question properly, let alone answer it. But coming back to the problem of consensus, once we agree that madmen are not legitimate voices in deciding what is a valid categorical imperative, and generally stupid people or morally immature ones like say very young children should be excluded from having a say in it, we come to realize that to someone with a particular point of view, anyone with a different point of view tends to be stupid or immature to some extent. So why not just ignore the people who disagree with you? Indeed, as you are probably the only person who agrees with yourself on every important issue (and probably not even that), why not just ignore everyone except yourself? But if we do this, where does this leave the categorical imperative? So basically I am saying that if we say that 1) categorical laws based only on personal prejudice are not categorical laws at all, then 2) since who we are and what we have experienced guide our opinions on all issues, they also

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guide our opinions on all moral issues. So it is pointless to think of categorical laws that are not guided by personal prejudice 3) democratic means to decide what are reasonable categorical laws are misguided because not only is it very difficult to decide what the majority opinion on a specific issue is, and not only must any attempt at consensus leave out a rather arbitrary set of people, following the majority opinion at all times would lead to consequences like the stifling of innovation that most people would not want. So, if we have to speak of categorical laws, we must also allow such laws that are based on personal prejudice. If we allow them, then everyone would be following any number of categorical laws - at least if their behavior shows any kind of consistency. I posit that the real value of the 'categorical imperative' lies not in forming moral laws for us to follow, but in giving us the ability to analyze moral laws that we already follow. For instance, if someone says that they are guided by the moral law of always killing criminals - but they would not kill their own family members for breaking the law, then possibly their true motives lie not only in the upholding of the law itself, but in upholding the law as a means to making the world a safer place for their families. Another example, suppose Rita always insists on fair weights when buying things but is negligent on actually giving fair weights, then her true objective is not fairness in weighing,

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but rather to increase her profits. Weighing is merely a tool for this purpose. In cases like these, the categorical imperative becomes a useful tool in the hands of not only her detractors, but also for herself. Many times we act on motives that only become clear to us when we look hard at them. Through the categorical imperative, we can become better aware of where our impulses are taking us, and thus we can decide whether or not we like the path it is taking."

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Means and Ends "What does it mean to be kind to people? I have heard of many points in support of being good to people and treating them as I myself would ike to be treated. I like reading Nex Comics, so I have decided to gift Nex Comics to random people for the rest of my life. Since it has a low readership anyway, it is unlikely that it would be wasted on too many people." "No, wait. That is fucked up. Do you really think that most people want to read those things? Don't you think that most of them would be perfectly able to buy them if they needed to, and would in fact be pissed off rather than happy at being spammed each month by the latest issue of Nex Comics?" "True enough. But many people would have liked those if only they had been exposed to Nex Comics at some time earlier -" "And an even larger number may have disliked it even then, to the extent of not wanting to get it even for free." "Okay, but consider this fact that too many people, especially orphaned and otherwise poor children, would be too poor to buy Nex Comics. So giving them Nex Comics would be about creating opportunities, rather than about

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spam." "True - but for the amount you would be spending on that, you could support them in more substantial ways. For instance, many people have difficulty even finding proper nutrition. Additionally, the fact that it is called Nex Comics does not negate the fact that it is essentially a softporn magazine. If you had been their father, wouldn't you have been pissed off at strangers sending this to your kids?" "Yes, but I am not their father. I am simply a stranger to them, treating them to what I would like to be treated to, myself." "You would have liked to see those images when you were 5-6 years old? I doubt it." "Yes - but that is in the past, while we are talking about how to treat people in the present. As you know, the present is a present. So in the present I would like to present people with stuff I would like to be presented with, myself." "I think this situation illustrates the problems involved with treating people like you would be wanted to be treated yourself, when in fact there are major differences in your needs and desires. By sending them softporn now, you are treating them like you want to be treated in the superficial sense of 'give us softporn', but not in the more fundamental

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sense of 'give me what I want the most', which underlies your desire to be treated by the rule of 'give us softporn'. By treating them superficially but not fundamentally according to the golden rule, you are in fact not treating them according to any golden rule at all. If you really want to be kind and treat them as you treat yourself, you need to at least understand how you treat yourself, or at least how you would like to." "But I do understand how I treat myself - I get whatever I want. That is how I treat myself." "This is patently false. Many a time you have skipped on food, television and games so you could work harder." "Yes, but I only work harder so I can get a better supply of Nex Comics. Skipping on food and games is ultimately only for the sake of getting more of that stuff." "True, but this means that you don't just get 'whatever you want': you give up certain kinds of desires for the sake of others. Don't you think that other people also deserve this kind of consideration?" "You mean like giving more priority to long-term goals over short-term ones?" "Someone may have the desire to reach the moon when they are 200 years old. Knowing this, and knowing that he

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will almost certainly not reach to be so old, would you still give that more preference over everything else? Keep in mind that not only may he not reach 200, he may not even reach 50. Many people do die earlier than that, in accidents and otherwise. Because of this, I believe that while we must give more preference to some desires over others, it cannot be on the basis of their time horizons. Rather, it needs to be on the basis of what drives are more fundamental for them. Something that is done as an end in itself needs to be given higher priority to something that is done as that end, as an end in itself." "Right - like for me, reading Nex Comics is an end in itself. On the other hand, things like food, sleep, etc. are just a means to that end. So Nex Comics is what I need to focus on. Thus, no harm in sending out Nex Comics to needy children..." "... while you seem to have got the point about giving priority to ends in themselves, when we interact with others it is not only a question of what you consider an end in themselves, but also what they consider as an end in itself. For a starving child, food is an end in itself because when taking food, they don't have any purpose in mind for the sake of which they are eating. On the other hand, there are probably many things they do as a means to getting at food. When you give Nex Comics to starving children, it lets them achieve what you consider to be an end in itself. However, in general it does not help them get at what they

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consider to be an end in itself. Also, it does not help you get what you consider an end in itself. So this is a silly thing to do. I would suggest helping them with things that they consider to be ends in themselves: either directly, or through helping them find the means to get at those ends. However, it is well to understand that other people also have things they consider to be ends in themselves, and their ends may differ from yours. To treat them by giving precedence to their ends makes more sense than imposing your ends on them, at least if you consider those other people as ends in themselves rather than as mere means to your ends. Also, I think any reasonable notion of being good to others would involve regarding them as ends in themselves rather than as mere means to your ends, right?" "But how does all this gel in with your notion about all of us being indistinguishable from each other? Since we are the same as each other, would it even make any difference whether I treat them according to their wishes or my own wishes?" "I say that the fundamental consciousness that feels itself to be alive, cannot be distinguished form person to person or even among living and seemingly lifeless entities. However, you and others do have different thoughts and feelings, even though the consciousness which enables you to have these thoughts and feelings cannot be rigidly differentiated between you and others. Thought is not the

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same as consciousness, and treating others as if they have the same wishes as you is not much different from being treated yourself as merely a means to the ends of someone else - and how would you like that? In a human body, you think as if there is only one consciousness, namely you for instance. But different parts of the body have their own abilities and needs. If you started feeding food to your ears and holding pens in your belly-button for writing, it may look funny but it could hardly be called treating your body properly. Similarly, different people with different abilities, different needs and different life experiences provide a variety that generally helps us all. To disregard the value in these differences among people is like disregarding the value in having a variety of organs instead of just one." "I guess because of this it may make more sense to see all people, and similarly all organs etc., interconnected like brothers, instead of dwelling on the fact that in some sense, they could all be considered one." "Thinking in terms of yourself as a complete human being, you can conceive of a human being as an entirety. So there is not much harm in thinking of human beings as complete entities instead of a bundle of interconnected organs. But since we are only single human beings, it is hard to conceive of a societal structure as a whole without giving undue weight to the aspects of it that concern us more. Therefore, it is only too easy to disregard the variety

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of purposes human beings serve in a society. Further, in practice persons who claim to be able to understand society as a whole tend to be crooks who are trying to psychologically intimidate others into paying tribute to them. Thus, acting within our limitations as individual human beings, we are better off thinking of societies as collections of interconnected human beings. Once societies as a whole become conscious to the extent of being able to ask such questions, they may be better served by conceiving societies as whole instead of as collections of interrelated human beings. But as individual human beings, that sort of thinking does not make much sense for us." "Right."

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Trust "Some people trust anyone, some trust no one. Whom do you trust?" "It is foolish and impractical to trust everyone with everything, because then you merely get taken for a ride. But it is also foolish to never trust anyone with anything, because that way nothing would ever get done. So we first realize that all trust is not the same: there are gradations to trust and trusting someone to do something that is not urgent on time is different than trusting someone with your life. Thus, having different degrees of trust, we realize that for us to trust anyone with anything major, they would have to earn that kind of trust. But when someone is coming to us with a blank slate, there is no harm in trusting them with something minor - for if people need to earn our trust, we must also be willing to give people the chance to earn that trust."

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Courage "What is courage? Is it the same as mere recklessness? Does someone who has no sense of fear automatically become the most courageous person? Is it the mere overcoming of fear? If I, for no reason, jump off a cliff and die, would it make me into someone courageous? I guess not, but if it is not these things, then what is it?" "I think that there is no such thing as courage without a purpose. Acts that with purpose would be courageous would become merely reckless without it. For example, consider putting life and limb to risk by fighting someone to the death. When you do this to protect your loved ones from slavery and destitution, or even just mismanagement, you are a courageous warrior. But when people do it in peacetime for mere amusement, it is no longer worthy of being called 'courageous'. Then, it is mere recklessness. Unfortunately, it often happens that when a civilization does too well - or stagnates in some other way, people are less exposed to true courage. Thus they are unable to distinguish it from mere recklessness. This is why we have gladiators, bullfights, reality shows and the like. I guess we can see the absence of purpose in all spheres, especially in activities called courageous - as one of the easily perceptible and significant indicators of the decay of

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society." "Yes, I think the main difference between courage and recklessness is one of purpose: a courageous person sees his courageous acts as the means to an end, while recklessness is more often than not an end in itself. Another way to look at it is to look at the opposite of courage: let me ask you, what is cowardice?" "A great man once said, 'to know what is right, and to not do it, is cowardice' - and I agree. In the same way, I guess we could say that courage lies in knowing what is right, and doing it. 'What is right' implies moral principles that are realized by these courageous actions but are not conceptually equivalent to the acts themselves. A person without such moral principles to uphold cannot therefore be considered courageous. Also, it implies acting on those notions, so someone who merely keeps theorizing about moral notions does not become courageous for doing that." "You have a point, but although I agree with what you have said till now as being necessary for something to be called courage, I think you are missing out on something. If I know what is right - and I do it - but that is something with no repercussions either psychologically or socially, am I doing something courageous? I don't think so. So it should be more like, 'knowing what is right and overcoming all

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obstacles to achieve it', is courage." "Society is like a viscous fluid, and so is most people's psychology: no matter what you do, you face resistance. You face resistance if you do what you believe in, but you also face resistance while doing what you don't believe in. Whether you go along with others' opinions or buck the trend, most people will in all cases feel some kind of inner resistance in terms of feelings, however slight, of guilt and fear. One could even claim that if one is not feeling such resistance, they are letting themselves stagnate in their life. One may take this further to claim that the more more guilt and fear one feels, the more they are doing with their life But this is patently false. Someone may feel more fear and guilt because of putting in more effort, but also because of lack of forethought in the way they put in their effort, or simply because they let life happen to them instead of happening back to life in turn. Someone who fights his fear before minimizing it does not become more courageous as a result. It is true that in the absence of other purposes, we often just go along the flow by doing whatever is easiest for us socially and psychologically. Because of this, the easiest way to know that we are being courageous - by knowing that we are not merely going along with the flow is by sensing how much resistance we are getting: if we feel more resistance, that probably means that we are being more purposeful and hence more courageous.

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However, this only makes sense for someone whose sense of purpose is merely instinctive - being guided by values he learned in childhood and older instincts. Because of this, he may be unable to consciously know and judge what gives him a sense of purpose. So he would be left with no better alternative than to judge his sense of purpose by the resistance he gets to his acts. However, someone who has reflected on his sense of purpose to know what gives him this sense of purpose, and has then reflected on his purposes to make his various kinds of purposes like long-term and short-term purpose, personal and social purpose etc. all aligned can easily figure out what course of action goes with this purpose simply by the use of conscious thought instead of having to resort to examining how strongly he feels a sense of purpose. When you figure out your purposes by this means instead of by measuring the resistance you feel to your plans and actions, it makes more sense to describe courage as the willingness to act on what suits your purposes. Of course, in general it is still true that increased resistance - both psychological and social - go along with courage. However, just like mere recklessness, they do not define courage."

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Competition "Some people believe that people should be more and more competitive, while some others feel that it is better for people to cooperate with each other. Out of these, which camp do you belong to?" "Competition is not the opposite of cooperation. Competition also involves an element of cooperation, in terms of agreeing to the objectives and the rules of the competition. Although you believe in differences to the extent to which people have the ability to achieve the objectives of the competition while following its rules, you probably do not believe in differences regarding the aims of different people. One could argue that the true opposite of cooperation or rather of the herd mentality is individualism, where you not only let go of the notion that people need to be the same in their abilities, you also let go of the notion that they need to be the same in their motivations. Thus, someone who is tired of a life whereby everyone is expected to be the same is better served by having their own unique motivations, rather than by merely trying to be more and more competitive. This camp, of individualism, is the one I am really closest to."

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Sacred "Have you heard of the guy who said, 'nothing is true, everything is permitted'? What an absurd statement. If nothing is true, then what about this very statement?" "I think the point is not about things being true, but about them being sacred, sacrosanct and unchallengeable. A lot of people keep following ideas that restrict their and others' behavior, but they don't even bother to question and judge those ideas before becoming slaves to them. Without treating ideas as such sacred cows, we permit ourselves everything - and so are able to question ideas to determine their worth. Even when we find an idea to be worthy, we follow it not because of being compelled to do so, but out of our own wish. We permit ourselves everything, and then, without any artificial restriction on our choices, do what seems reasonable according to our wishes. Now contrast this with the opposite, 'tolerant' idea. 'Everything is true, nothing is permitted' " "Indeed. Some people realize the importance of treating all ideas the same a priori, but the instinct to revere is so strong in them that instead of challenging and questioning everything, they instead end up blindly believing everything.

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But while some ideas may be consistent with each other, it is not the case that all ideas are consistent with each other." "This is why, once one believes 'everything is true' for long enough, they develop a disregard for logical consistency. Once this happens, anyone can dictate anything to them. There is no shortage in this world of seekers after power and status, even through deceitful means. Thus, more and more people start to develop arbitrary rules and regulations, and there is no one to question them. It is not uncommon to see that doing something is banned, but so is not doing it. This state of activities continues until there is some obscure rule or the other against any kind of activity. From this situation - from the despair in this of the people who actually want to follow all rules, from the jubilation of those to whom rules and regulations mean no more than opportunities for the naked display of power we come to this saying among them: 'everything is true, nothing is permitted'"

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Desert "Don't you think that people who let others steal from them should be killed?" "I don't know what you are talking about: they are already fined an amount that is equal to the money stolen from them. Don't you think that this is punishment enough?" "It is a form of punishment, but keep in mind that theft undermines the very basis of civilized society. This is a serious offense." "True, but i would think that state-sanctioned murder undermines it more..." "Are you serious? Everyone knows that a ruler who cannot kill his subjects is not a ruler, but a servant to them. Without the King regularly enforcing his power, he is seen as weak and is soon overthrown, and..." "I know all that. I too went to school just like you, and was indoctrinated with the same bullshit." "Not only that, you did quite well in it - and that fact has helped you do well in life so far! So then how can you now turn traitor to the very system to which you owe everything? Have you no shame?"

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"I see myself not as a traitor, but as a reformer. What I believe is that while we have an obligation to the state which protects us, we have an even deeper commitment to notions like fairness, leniency and objectivity in treating various people." "What do you mean? Everyone knows that notions like rights and obligations originate from the state, so it is meaningless to talk of the creations of the state being more important than the state itself!" "Unlike you, I believe that although the state can have its own subjective laws of ruler and ruled - of winner and loser - nature too has its own objective laws that don't distinguish between people, just as they don't distinguish between specks of sand. A person may perish if he goes against a state, but a state too will perish if it goes against nature. As patriotic members of our state, our fundamental duty towards it is to ensure its continued survival. This supersedes the duties the state imposes on us by force, because if we don't follow the former, we cannot follow the latter towards a state in the absence or ruin of the state itself. In this way, objective laws of nature have always been the true calling of people like myself, who have worked hard to realign themselves and their states towards these laws and have thus strengthened both in the long run. The fact that the laws of the state must be brought into accord with the laws of nature is precisely the reason why

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revolutionaries like myself have always been crucial components of any society." "Do you think that following these 'objective laws of nature' instead of the subjective laws of our great state makes you a hero? It only makes you a zero, a fool! Everyone knows that the bias towards objectivity has led to the exploitation of countless people throughout history, and only our subjective laws favoring the needy has redressed the injustices meted out by objectivity." "I too have heard all that when those notions were parroted to us as little children, the difference between us lying in precisely this: that I have overcome those childish notions. First of all, there can be no such thing as a 'bias towards objectivity', because objectivity by definition is a default state on which you can superimpose your personal biases (since nature has no personal biases, it is impartial objective). Secondly, the notion of subjectivity being a friend of human rights is a myth. In case you did not notice, laws that claim to help the needy and oppressed that are not phrased objectively (as tends to be the case) generally end up persecuting groups hated by the framers of the law. Similarly, the beneficiaries almost always end up being the friends, relatives and voters of those who are in power - even when, in fact especially when, they are not really oppressed in any way. Examples of such laws include the ones that have been made so that members of one group can bring the whole apparatus of the state to

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bear against a personal enemy from another group, who may not even be capable of having committed the crime he is accused of. If the role of the two parties had been reversed here, even you could see that it is unjust. But you can't, because in your mind you cannot exchange the roles of the two. This is a prime instance of injustice, and can be seen to happen only because the framers and executors of the said law do not bother to be objective." "Blah blah... come to the point. Why should we not kill those who let themselves be robbed? All your points are invalid because we already kill people for sleeping too much when they should be working." "The answer I want to give here involves the irrationality and disproportionality of killing people for slacking off... but I suspect you don't want to hear that line of argument. I suspect that I cannot get to you there because of the ways in which our state has successfully indoctrinated you. So let me rather come back to the original question: why should we even be killing people for getting robbed? Shouldn't it be the other way around?" "Everyone knows that the responsibility for preventing a robbery lies on the one being robbed - because if everyone has perfect security, no one will ever get robbed. Further, those who are robbed are by definition weaker and thus more useless sections of society than those who do the robbing. We need to encourage those lazy people to get

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off their ass, by holding them responsible for the acts they let happen. There is no point in punishing the strong for the weaknesses of the weak, because that way we will only reduce our own strength as a society." "Robbers, in general, are not defined by being stronger than their victims: what really distinguishes them is their willingness to inflict sadness on their victims and then society's condemnation as a weakling who was robbed. Now, of course, due to the current state of laws everyone wants to be a robber so that even if they are robbed they can hide that fact. But this merely turns the 'strength of the society' (that you were referring to) against itself. Therefore, by blaming the victim, you are not reducing but are actually increasing the time people spend in planning robberies and in trying to ward them off. If you had merely blamed the perpetrator instead, this time would have been freed up for other more constructive pursuits. Additionally, only a small fraction of the population is willing to actively break the law (as opposed to the larger population that ends up breaking it passively when the demands made by the law cannot be fulfilled in practice). Thus, by simply locking them up, you could greatly reduce crime instead of increasing it as is happening with the current approach." "You are building castles in the air: has such a legal system ever existed?" "It existed right here on the land we are standing on, laws

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that protected people from robbery instead of blaming them for being victims to it. Right now, it is no longer there, having been overthrown by a generation of people who wanted to be robbers instead of just being protected from them... you can see the society that generation created dying around us. The old society may no longer be there, but they achieved great things and survived for far longer than we have any hope of doing right now." "But how can you excuse a robbee? Isn't he a criminal? Doesn't he deserve to be punished, at least? Who will give him his just deserts?" "My point, which you seem to have been missing all along, is precisely this: the just deserts of people are not determined just by them. It also depends on the paradigm under which you decide to see their actions. For the successful paradigm you follow, the responsibility to prevent robbery rests on the owner of said property. But for the historical, even more successful paradigm followed by our late ancestors, robbery can and should be tackled by dealing with the robbers - they are the ones being blamed for the robbery. So there is nothing inherently criminal about the robbee: only the attitude of the society makes it so." "So two different paradigms can be equally successful in terms of survival, even as they apportion blame in vastly different ways for the same crime?"

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"Yes, this is a fact: and this is precisely what I mean when I say that the just deserts of all people depend on the glasses through which we look at them... use a different paradigm, and the hero will become a villain while a villan become a nobody. Of course, it is hardly conceivable to look at anything without a paradigm. but then this is the reason why I don't take my own judgments about anyone seriously: under a different paradigm, I could possibly have see them in an entirely different light."

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Greatness "You know, sometimes I wish I could interact more with the great philosopher Rahul Raj, so that I could learn from him and be more like him. Here on my own, it is very hard to find inspiration." "Very interesting, so you want to be just like Dr. Rahul?" "Yes." "So if you get to know more and more about how he lived his life, will you try to emulate as much of it as you can?" "Yes, of course." "Unfortunately, the more you did that, the less you would be like him. Why is this? Simply because he himself is an original, not a carbon copy - and it is largely this that makes him what he is. Did he spend his whole life trying to emulate someone, or did he beat his own path? He found his own path. If you, instead of finding your own path, merely try to emulate him, then at best you can be like him only superficially. You will thus be unable to emulate the very characteristic which made him great - his originality. If you want to emulate his greatness, then instead of finding superficial similarities you are probably better off just being original and true to yourself, like him."

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"Yes, good point. But then how do you explain the fact that in many cases, great people turn out to have known other great men, sometimes closely, in their youth and childhood?" "To understand this, we are probably better off understanding their attitudes towards those they knew. Did they see themselves as creepers and the others as trees they can creep over by emulating their habits and views? Or was their attitude more like: 'If this guy can do it then I too can do it - I can probably do it better'. I think you will find that it is generally the latter, as borne out by the low opinion a new generation of great men often has for an old generation and also by the quarrels and fights they can be expected to keep having among themselves. My point is that for someone who wants to become great, other great men are useful - but not as supports using which he can hide his own shortcomings, but rather as obstacles he needs to overcome - signposts of what he wants to surpass. The old generation's greats became what they are by surpassing the even older generation - and this happens because instead of doing things the old way they did things in new, better ways - or even because they generally did better things. So in a similar way, for someone to become a new generation's flag-bearer, they too need to do things not in the old way but rather in new, better ways. Thus you need to have the courage to try new things, the arrogance to believe they can work, and the

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understanding that while better ways need to be new, all new ways are not necessarily better - this should help when you try out something that does not work better than the old way or even does not work at all, with this understanding you should be able to avoid killing yourself." "This sounds interesting. Either my desire to emulate Rahul earlier showed my desire to become great like him, or my lack of confidence in my ability to do that." "More like it showed both." "True, but from now on I am going to do things my own way. Let's see if I really am really able to surpass him in that way. If it works, then well and good." "And what if it doesn't?" "It is still good. I will have lived life my way, fighting for what I want instead of gaining fake accomplishments by superficially emulating others. Even if it does not work out, it is good enough to have lived life working towards genuinely getting what I want."

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Heart of Sword "A heart of sword? What's that? Is that the thing you have after someone stabs you in the heart? Although I guess that would be more like a heart pierced by a sword, no?" "No, that is not the kind of thing I am talking of here. To understand what I mean by heart of sword, you should think of most people having hearts of blunt weapons" "You mean like clubs? Or hammers?" "There are people who waste time in clubs. There are also people who keep hammering away at things. So you have something there. But basically, you got to realize that the art of war reached a new level when people graduated from using blunt weapons like clubs and hammers to sharp stuff like swords. Why? Because sharp objects can focus much more force to a point than blunt objects, at least if similar power is applied on both of them. Also, the kind of point damage inflicted by swords is harder to deal with than the kind of area damage inflicted by blunt objects" "Okay, so you are basically talking about focus, no?" "Yes, but since focus leads to more power, most people confuse power with focus. In reality, to develop focus, you don't need much power. All you need is the ability to let go

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of that which is not important. To use the analogy, you could make a club out of steel, and then sculpt a sword out of that club. The sword will be much more of a weapon than the club, even though the sword was created by removing things from the club, rather than by adding to it. Similarly, to become more focused, you don't need to add some mysterious element called 'focus', all you got to do is to remove what is non-essential. If you take a crosssection of a club, it is essentially the same in all directions, but a cross-section of a sword is essentially onedimensional. Similarly, someone with a heart of sword is liable to be described as one-dimensional by those who have hearts of blunt objects" "So we basically got to become fanatical about one thing, and kill our emotions, that sort of thing?" "It's not about killing your emotions. It's about realizing that many of our emotions are merely the result of social conditioning and so don't count for shit. So we become lazy in acting on them, and soon only thoughts and actions that lead to our purposes are of any consequence whatsoever. Also, fanatics become fanatical precisely because they are led by their conditioned emotions, rather than by reason. So a person with a heart of sword is actually the least fanatical of people, although in some cases he may look like that to others" "But I just realized that a sword is awesome only if you

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can keep using its blade, it's useless if say at any time you mistakenly use its thin dimension for hitting anyone" "That's why it's pointless to have a heart of sword unless you have something to use it for. Until you are very clear about what you want to do with your life, you will never be able to figure out what you want of the sword in your heart. That is why we say that a purposeful mind needs to arise before you can think of having a heart of sword"

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Plan Management "Wouldn't it be wonderful if we could plan out our lives form now on until we die? With nothing new to think of, we would not need to fear anything. Also, we could devote full effort to our plans if we did not have to keep changing them from instant to instant." "Is that so? Aren't you the same guy who was talking with me yesterday about how you want to live life spontaneously, in the moment - without having to worry about what tomorrow will bring?" "Yes, maybe that was so. But then, you yourself convinced me about the futility of that line of thinking, and made me realize the power of having a 'heart of sword', as you call it. Figuring out the escape from anxiety and doubt, and also the strength it promises, I have decided to live my life in that way only: My life will have one purpose only, and I will use every aspect of my life as a mere tool to achieve that purpose. With everything geared towards a single purpose, I will cut through difficulties like a knife -" "Or a sword..." "Yeah, I will do that - and with nothing to distract myself, there will be no one in the whole world who can stop me from achieving greatness in my chosen field of endeavor! I

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will be the unstoppable force, I will be the immovable object! All shall look at me and tremble!" "Very well, but have you even thought of what this single purpose of your life is going to be; or are you just going to go with the first arbitrary idea that comes into your head?" "Not yet, but I will get around to it eventually..." "And when do you intend to start on this whole 'heart of sword' thing? Before or after you manage to think of this purpose?" "Well..." "There is a problem here: first of all, you cannot really start to do it before you have found your one true purpose because there is no thing as purposeful action without a purpose. Further, if you want to wait till you find the best purpose you can have then merely finding this purpose will probably take up your whole life. Even if it doesn't, by the time you find something that looks satisfactory that way, you will probably be too old and tired to actually make it happen. On the other hand, suppose you really just wanted something reasonably awesome. Then by the time you have finished with that project, you will probably come to see how it was not all you had hoped it would be. Even if it is indeed all you had hoped it would be, you may still realize that you could have thought of and done something

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better - maybe not something entirely different but only a modification of your original plans. However, once you have given your whole life to one purpose, it is hard to go ahead and give your whole life to yet another purpose." "So then, this must be why the whole concept of 'heart of sword' is meaningless and no one follows it in practice." "Rather, this is the reason why, when I talk of the notion of having a 'heart of sword', taking interest in only what is essential and ignoring all that is of little relevance to a given purpose - I only talk about one's state of mind at any given time: I do not talk of the whole life. And why should this not be the case? If I was thinking in terms of having only a single purpose throughout life, it would be like a blade but one which always faces the same way. Such a heart could probably be called a 'heart of guillotine', but a sword is something such that even though its blade clearly points in only one direction at time, is still capable of being swung around in different directions. Thus, a 'heart of sword' too has only a given purpose at any given point of time: but the direction keeps changing according to our environment and our understanding of it. As time passes, new developments keep taking place all around us, which change our abilities and our responsibilities. Also, we keep getting insights into the reasons behind our motivations, and as we keep working towards various objectives we also gain a better understanding of whether they satisfy our needs at all, and if so then in what way. Therefore, as

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our understanding changes, it makes sense to readjust our purposes accordingly." "But doesn't this process of continually rejudging our purposes conflict with this notion of having a heart of sword?" "Why? If you had a sword, would you continually keep thrusting it forward, without ever drawing it back? In practice, you would need to pull it back one in a while just so you can keep thrusting it forward. In the same way, the periods of reflection, especially after finishing up smaller constituent goals, are essential not just to know where to thrust next, but also to be able to do this thrusting. In fact, what characterizes a heart of sword is not that it does not reflect, but rather when it reflects on its experiences everything it does it geared towards such reflection. A lesser heart may still have moments of reflection, but when it reflects it also wants to do a hundred other things - and it does not know what its priorities are among the hundredand-one things it wants. A heart of sword too may realistically have many goals that it realizes it wants to achieve over its lifetime, but it is able to prioritize among them to do them one at a time. Then it does them one at a time in such a way that at any given time when it is trying to accomplish a purpose, it does not bother (and thus worry) itself with the others. Therefore, what really characterizes a heart of sword is not so much its concern about what does concern it, but rather a lack of worry

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about what does not concern it then. By keeping aside time to reflect on its motives and the reasons behind them especially by doing this after finishing up with medium-term goals (which may have been a component of longer-term goals), it is better able to make use of its experience over its lifetime, instead of being stuck with the motives and means of a teenager for its whole life." "So you really recommend this whole notion of sharpening one's heart like a sword, huh?" "I won't really say that I recommend it to everyone, given how many people are keen to have a slow, complicated life. However, many people do feel that they were born to do something, and for them it probably makes sense to know what the thing is that they wish to do, to plan on how to go about doing it, and to not worry about stuff that does not help them with their goals simply because concern for that stuff was imposed on them by external sociological factors. Therefore, I think that this notion of having a 'heart of sword' is certainly very useful as a means to an end, or even over a lifetime as a means to many ends. However, I don't really see it as something to be pursued as an end in itself." "Hey, all this talk of planning and changing our plans as per our experience is swell, but why not just let our goals be dictated by honored authorities who are older and smarter than us, who are time-tested and respected by

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many? They certainly have had the time to think up the goals for us to follow. So instead of coming up with hopes and dreams of our own, isn't it just so much better to have one final goal in life set for us by authorities? Then we can gear everything in our lives to just achieving this one goal. This gives us better focus, and saves us the time spent in agonizing over our goals." "A surprisingly common line of thought, whether one thinks of these 'authorities' as those who get their 'authority' from age, tradition, or current popularity or achievement. However, even if one assumes that such an authority is indeed someone who has given good thought to what meaningful goals in life are - something that is probably less common than you may expect - there are still other problems. For one, if someone lays claim to have found a goal for all people then they are probably lying or just deluded, since with the wide variety among human beings it does not seem likely that the same goal makes sense for all of us. If, instead, you are thinking in terms of a 'pool of experts', who have all given you various goals that can be followed, the process in choosing among them will essentially be the same as finding your own goal - at least for most people. This is because, unless one comes up with a really unorthodox or even cranky goal in life, the other goals will be similar to things that have already been attempted by others with at least partial success. So one will anyway have role models to follow. If the idea of first making a 'pool of experts' is really any different, it would

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probably have to do largely with the selection of people to be in this pool being decided by their reputation (i.e. how much others like them) rather than just by how much you like doing what they did. In other words, it involves at least partially killing your dreams for the sake of the prejudices of others. I don't know if that is much of a good idea because while it is possible for others to be smarter, wiser, more accomplished and popular than you - you cannot really be as sure about anyone else's intentions towards you as you can be sure of your own intentions towards yourself."

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Tribalism "Many people believe that people of their own tribe must be superior by virtue of the mere fact that they share a tribe with them. What do you think of this?" "I do believe that our duty towards the members of tribe in general exceeds that we have towards others, because our own tribesmen have invested more time and energy towards us. However, we have an even greater duty towards our own selves, and part of our duty to our own self and other members of our tribe is to not mislead each other by ideas that are clearly mistaken. After all, it is clear that intentionally misleading someone is at best a sign of mistrust and at worst a sign of hostility - so intentionally misleading our own selves and our own people is like a sign of mistrust and hostility to our own selves. Like suicide, it is a sign of the will turning against itself. So I don't really admire this kind of behavior. One of the obvious ways to mislead our selves and allies is by pretending that we are better off than we have reason to think of being. When we claim to our people that we are more honest, more intelligent, braver, kinder than members of other tribes, merely by virtue of being in our given tribe - we are lying not to our enemies, but to our own kind. This is violence not against our enemies but against our allies. Thus, tribalism is the farthest thing from being well-wishers of each other.

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Of course, this is not the only problem with tribalism. While we are justified in being more concerned about the welfare of our own tribespeople than of others (because they have invested more in us than in others), when we become oblivious to their well-being, or worse develop a sense of enmity towards them, we stop consciousness from expressing itself in units of more than a tribe. In this sense of stopping its reach, it is analogous to a person being concerned only with his own welfare, to the extent of becoming a misanthrope - a tribe as a dead end is not much different from an individual human as a dead end."

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Pacifism "What do you think of the pacifists: certain people who believe that pacifism is worthy as an end in itself, and that we should never fight others no matter what?" " This point of view does not seem to have much merit, in spite of the fact that violence too is not worthy as an end in itself. Without tribes being willing to defend themselves form other tribes, the tribes who don't defend themselves will be eliminated by those who are willing to use force - a good example being the genocide of neanderthals by modern humans in the colonization of Europe. But even within a tribe, if individuals are unwilling to use force to fight for the rights and freedoms they want, they will find themselves being subjugated and enslaved by those who are more unscrupulous than them. Further, this is not an 'honorable act of self-sacrifice' - allowing others to have their way through the unscrupulous use of force encourages them to stick to those methods and thus acts as a disincentive to seek other, more just solutions. Thus, those who are pacifist for the heck of it also share some responsibility for the spread of unscrupulous violence in their society. If we want to live in a society where certain kinds of ways of solving problems (eg. through considering the wishes of all) are preferred over others (like beating up those who are weaker than you), then we need to act in a way that encourages the means we prefer over the ones

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we don't. When we realize that many people consider violence to take forms other than physical - eg. mental, psychological, etc. - it becomes even clearer that violence is not always something to be avoided. Any form of evolution involves the breaking down of old structures, and thus would be considered to be violence by someone or the other. If we had this notion of violence in Galileo or Darwin's days, no doubt they too would have been considered violent. However, perhaps they have been of more 'value to society' than others who decided to go along with everything just the way it already existed becase that is what was accepted."

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Non-Violence "The principle behind non-violence is not that we must reduce suffering: no matter what we do, suffering is inherent in the struggle for consciousness to establish itself in the world. It is the birth-pangs, so to speak. Suffering causes us to have sympathy for each other and thus can be said to make us better people. However, what is saddening is when someone willingly causes suffering to another person or generally another being/thing: because once we accept that consciousness is spread throughout with the divisions in it being merely convenient, to believe that causing harm to another is in itself something to take pleasure in - and then to act on that belief - is merely the will turning on itself. This takes away from manifesting consciousness in the world. To cause suffering to others for the heck of it is essentially the same as causing suffering to oneself for the heck of it - it does not help solve any problem but is merely a show of helplessness, a misguided attempt by consciousness to deny itself." "But even to take pleasure in violence in itself can be cathartic and thus not totally pointless. For instance, when we are faced with a gross injustice, should we just stand by and let it perpetuate?" "If we take the desire to be violent as a form of catharsis, we must also accept that this violence cannot be an end in

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itself - if at some point we feel compelled to resort to violence as catharsis due to being unable to deal with the problem with a view to finding a solution, it can be useful right then but it is nevertheless a sign of weakness. We must also accept that eventually we must learn to go to the root of the problem instead of trying to depend on th high of cathartic violence. In other words, the desire to use violence for catharsis is something to be overcome." "On the other hand, to fight for some concept of justice is different from fighting for its own sake. It is true that people who are fighting merely to quench their savagery often dress it up as a fight for justice, but that does not make them the same. Nor does it mean that a fight for justice cannot truly exist. If someone is indeed forced to fight to uphold justice, and then acts with the end as upholding justice and fighting as merely the means (not vice-versa), that is not a case of violence with the will turning on itself." "Consider the fact that a natural death is considered to be in the due course of things but a murder is much more horrible than that. What is the reason for this? In both cases, someone dies. It cannot merely be a case of dieing earlier in one case, because murdering someone on their deathbed is still heinous. To sum up, what is heinous is not so much that someone died, as the fact that this involved the consciousness turning on itself." "This is also why suicide is the worst kind of murder:

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because it is the most egregious case of will turning against itself."

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War "You know, I often think that we should just take the path of least resistance, just going our own ways without being bothered with what others do. In this way, there could be true peace in the world Perhaps we wil eventually be done with war too." "Ahh, just let things slide... the true joy of peace, true peace and bliss - right?" "Yeah. I am so glad to have you agree with me for once..." "Except for the small detail that with some people willing to kill for their whims and others not even willing to fight for their rights, you know very well which group will die out. In the past, the ability of people to increase their chances of survival has depended on various factors, including chance. For the sake of simplicity, we could say that at least two of these factors would be: 1) How martial you are: being willing to kill your competitors and thus reduce competition for resources would increase your 'fitness'. 2) Technical and and physical prowess. In short, in the first way it is the size of the fight in the dog that counts, while in the second it is the size of the man in the fight - or out of it. But what happens when you become entirely pacifist in your approach? Since the whole species has not converted over to non-violence - and even if it did, other species

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would not automatically do so - by being entirely pacifist, you merely increase the difference in aggressiveness between two groups of people. Thus, you increase the importance of aggression as a factor in survival. Thus, you relatively reduce the importance of technical and physical prowess, civility and other such civilization-building characteristics. This is even more so when you mandate that the benefits of innovation and individual achievement in general are socialistically distributed among the whole population. Meanwhile, the advantages of aggression continue to be privatized even as losses caused by it continue to be socialized. The net result of this is that being a violent person increases in evolutionary fitness, while actually creating value is ridiculed. As a result of this, while individuals may well keep on pushing the frontiers of human achievement, the benefits of this to the rest of society keeps decreasing - not because the new generation grows up with the wrong genes, so much as because it grows up with the wrong kind of culture - one of mindless aggression on the one hand, which is of course codependent with passivity in the face of aggression on the other." "I see your point, but isn't the promotion of violence even in retaliation only going to result in a net increase in violence among all? For all people do not always agree on what is proper retaliation. Also, an eye for an eye will only make the world go blind."

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"First of all, the notion that an eye for an eye will make the whole world go blind is absurd. Two eyes for an eye will make the world go blind, as will most ways of taking 1.1 eyes for an eye. On the other hand, an eye for an eye will only cause those who intentionally cause blindness in others to go blind. While I have sympathy even for such people, this way will in the end cause less harm than 'nothing for an eye', where even one man if he wants can make all the rest of the world blind. This is why I am a believer in retaliation. I do agree that not everyone agrees on what is acceptable retaliation. But while it is always good to be moderate in using violence, some kind of retaliation - even if mild - is needed to deter others from being too violent, although I do agree that violence is best used sparingly and only after other options have been exhausted."

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Likeness "I have been thinking about your arguments against pure pacifism and passivity. Your ideas seem agreeable as they go, but I feel that they stop too short. It is true that removing violence from our lives, and letting all people share equally in the benefits of progress - only ends up promoting traits like violence and promiscuity that benefit individuals over others but harm society as a whole, while at the same time reducing the value of intelligence, considerateness, willingness to abide by laws - traits that may be disadvantageous individually, but are beneficial to society as a whole at least unless exploited by people with the former traits. However, is it really good enough to merely defend against exploitation by violent people? Even though we may thus have more time to develop civilized behavior in the short term, in the medium to long term it will only lead to us having to defend ourselves against stronger and more numerous violent people. This is clearly suboptimal. Won't it be better to actively pursue a policy of exterminating undesirable elements?" "Do you know what a dollar auction is?" "Yes, it is a good way to find the undesirable elements in any society. We just ask people to bid for a single dollar, starting the bid at 5 cents: the catch being that the secondhighest bidder also has to pay but gets nothing. At first,

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people bid because they see an opportunity to make a profit. But it quickly deteriorates into a question of pride. Most people end up paying far too much for a single dollar. A similar situation can be encountered in almost all competitive endeavors. For example, as a child at school, we can see that there is a rivalry among the top few ranks in every class to be the topper each time. While in general there are obvious benefits to doing well academically as compared to not studying, if you start to do it for the sake of your ego, there is a stage where the added effort would not be worth it in terms of knowledge gained, especially since the kind of thing that would make a difference at that level would not generalize to other areas of activity, and this inability to generalize would kill the basic aim of education. This kind of problem can also be seen in any competitive endeavor where being number one has its own appeal as distinct from what you otherwise get from doing well. The basic problem here is that as you specialize yourself more and more for a certain area, those whom you are up against are also people who have thus specialized themselves for it. So you don't have as much of a competitive advantage as you may expect. Further, you spend more and more time getting skills that do not generalize. This is enough to mellow our praise for competition in a harmless endeavor like studies, although we may well point out that when this specialization occurs in accordance to the inclination of the concerned individual and not only due to societal pressures, it helps the person involved find his niche and like-minded fellows he can be

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comfortable around. However, this becomes a far greater problem when we are competing with people we dislike, in doing things we dislike, simply because we find them to be disgusting. The problem here is in violence, as in any other sphere of activity, the better you get at it the better at it are the people you have to do it with. So the more violence you use, your habits and inclinations become those of violence, and so the places you go to and the activities you undertake begin to be those for which comparatively more violent people have an inclination. Consequently, you end up dealing with more people who are violent and thus also with more violent people than earlier. How does this help? This makes the problem only worse, not better. To take a concrete example, suppose you start killing off people you dislike. This will only increase your visibility among violent people, among whom some will certainly hate you too and want to kill you. Even if you managed to defeat them, this very act would bring to you a new batch of more violent antagonists, and so forth. So, in the end, you only end up making things worse for yourself." "I see, so then this is like the law of karma." "Except, in the same life. Also, this recognizes that not everything that happens to people is due to their own actions or choices. A lot (most?) of what happens to us is out of our control. We could call this luck. Because of this, when we see someone suffering from some kind of misfortune, we feel pity for them, instead of hating them for

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some imaginary misdeed they must have done earlier in life." "But by this logic, why not just remain passively nonviolent? If doing this beings us closer to other people who are also like that, and ultimately that would be better for us because we too would like to be among such people." "An interesting point of view, but this approach has its limitations in the sense that for it to work, you would have to completely isolate yourself from others who are not inclined to take advantage of this. At certain points in time, and at certain places - in certain societies - this could be made to work. So no harm in doing that then. But in practice, at most times, at most places and in most societies it is simply impossible to thus isolate oneself without someone trying to use violence on you. This residual amount that cannot be avoided, must be retaliated against. There is no escaping that. After all, we wouldn't want to live in a society which being non-violent nevertheless lets itself get wiped out by more violent ones. However, when we don't just limit this violence to what we do to protect ourselves, and instead start to initiate aggression or to retaliate against by aggression by even more violence - that is when we stop being a part of the solution and start to be a part of hte problem. With this, we start having to deal with more violent people than initially, and become a scourge not just for others but also for our own people. Thus, in general, I would think that it is better

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to change ourselves to become less and less violent, but we have to account for the fact that there is a residual violence that we cannot escape. Also, suddenly becoming very non-violent is prone to elicit violent reactions from those around us. This is also the case when we don't do anything suddenly, but in general are much more nonviolent than those around us. To account for this, it would seem that the best path is moderation, where we are less violent than those around us, but not by a big margin. Also, in addition to the gradual shift to being around less violent people that should happen by this method but may be too slow to be of any actual help, we also have to consciously account for the fact that we want to be around people that we like. So we need to look consciously for places with such people, too. Once among them, if we are more violent and manipulative than them, it is then up to us to change ourselves." "But what if, in such a situation, we find ourselves wanting to exploit and manipulate them, instead of becoming one of them?" "Of course, to avoid such a case is among the reasons to support moderation. But if we do find ourselves trying to manipulate them, rest assured that we will likely find ourselves among such violent manipulators in the near future. Thus, we would get to be 'punished for our sins', by being around people like ourselves. Once that happens for long enough, maybe will learn to change our ways from

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that. This is the „invisible hand of justice‟ at work." "I see."

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Assumptions "This neighbor of mine – Ravi - I hate him. He is so arrogant - I want to beat him up and humiliate him" "If you use those methods on a guy who is not arrogant, will he still get beaten up?" "Yes, of course" "Then this is not how I would do it. Consider this: all over the world, people make a big deal of the scientific method. no doubt you do too. But what is it? Is it not merely the understanding that no matter how sure you are about a conclusion when you first think of it, you could be wrong and it is generally a good idea to seek to disprove ideas rather than make sacred beliefs out of them? Tell me, isn't this what lies at the heart of the scientific method?" "Questioning our assumptions, yes" "When we look for physical facts, we trust that method. So why not trust it with psychological facts too? After all it seems like a trustworthy method." "True..." "Now, according to how arrogant you find him to be, do

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you think he would agree to a game of chess with you?" "Why would he? He knows that I am a far stronger player than him." "He presumably knows that you are strong, since this is a well-known fact. But, did you not just say that he is also very arrogant? Do you think him arrogant enough to believe that in spite of your claimed strength, you are probably weaker than him simply because you are you and he is full of himself?" "Yes, indeed." "Also, according to your assumptions, he will be utterly angry when he loses to you?" "Yes, because he is arrogant." "So you see, in order to punish him for his arrogance we have found a method which relies on his arrogance. If we turn out to be correct and he acts as you think he will, then it is poetic justice for him to be punished by his own arrogance On the other hand, what if you are wrong? What is you have misjudged him? What if he is not really that arrogant? What if he is just socially inept, or just met you when having a bad day?" "Then my plan will fail..."

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"But will you be unhappy at it failing?" "Frustrated, angry perhaps... well, maybe not much since I would have one less enemy to be paranoid about. What's more, I will probably be relieved on not having acted on my misapprehensions earlier..."

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Immortality "Wouldn't it be nice to be immortal?" "Of course, when we are young we don't think of old age and death - and thus are frightened of those when they appear. But simply because we don't think of death does not mean we assume that we are going to be immortal. In fact, we don't think at all about what will happen in a few decades. Since we can now think of death and its horrors, you assume that simply removing death and thus becoming immortal would be great. But immortality is not merely the absence of the experience of death. You may not feel death as an immortal, and probably that would also imply getting rid of physical degradation due to old age. Nevertheless, you would have to carry the baggage of your past forever. The memory of that bad accident, those people who made fun of you - these will never end. An eternal life can also mean eternal torment, if someone manages to overpower your eternal self. Had you considered these things? Of course not. I guess I always took it for granted that eternal life would bring eternal joy." "However, the general experience of life, even without death, is not one of unadulterated joy. It also consists of a fair bit of suffering. It seems reasonable to expect that if a

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limited life brings limited suffering, an unlimited life must then be a source of unlimited suffering. In fact, as the lifespan increases, we would expect our sorrows to increase faster than our joys, because new suffering tends to add to the old unlike joy which stands by itself." "All of this may be true - but how can we reconcile ourselves to no longer existing, which is what death is?" "Look around yourself: no matter where you see, there is no place where the potential for consciousness is not. In this vast matrix of awareness, you are but a drop in the ocean. When you die, the memories for this specific life will get extinguished, but the ocean of which you are but a part will not disappear. The end of memories which also include bad memories is merely a cleansing of this stream of consciousness. This ocean does not die, but through individual deaths it replenishes itself and gets reborn each second into new individuals. This process of continual replenishment seems to me to be far more desirable than the monotony and infinite suffering of an infinite, immortal existence as an individual - which would only lead to infinite suffering in my understanding."

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Growing Up "Don't you think that the government should take care of our food, clothing, shelter - and should also protect us from having to interact with people we dislike?" "Not unless you are a child. Listen, resources are not free. Resources are never free. Someone always has to pay something for them. If you don't pay by giving stuff in exchange, you pay by taking care of the resources or of other resources that generate these resources. There is no such thing as a free lunch, at least not for long. People who don't take care of themselves - who don't make good decisions in life - eventually die out. If they avoid dying because their culture subsidizes them, then the culture will eventually have to support more and more such guys (having supported them earlier) and will eventually die out. If the wider society decides to bail out such a society, then for the same reasons it too will die out. Similarly, if you make a global effort to encourage such societies, the species could die out - and beyond that whom do you look to for help? At each of these levels, the capacity to hide bad choices increases - but so does the certainty of ruin when they are no longer able to be hidden. So in practice, if you want to live, then in exchange for something you have to give something else. If someone helps you, you too have to help them. If you depend on a species for survival, you have to protect it from other species and

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otherwise work for its welfare. Even if it is a 'lifeless' mineral resource that you depend upon, you have a responsibility towards it: if you keep using it blindly, eventually you will run out and then where will you be? Money, goodwill, respect, security - all these have to be earned. if you don't earn, you will die. If you don't die, you will be responsible for the end of what stopped you from dying. But it is insane to think that society should not help out its weaker sections. Do you really think that abandoning those in need is truly the way to survival?" "I am not talking about abandoning the least fortunate bad luck can and should be insured against by larger social sections. But why should be the effect of bad luck be minimized?" "To improve the general well-being of people?" "This is a shallow way of thinking. do you think that the well-being of people can be improved without encouraging in them the characteristics that are conducive to wellbeing? As you are, to such situations will you eventually gravitate. So the real purpose of subsidizing bad luck is not so that we are able to get a quick-fix solution of handing out goodness. The real reason is that by making luck a smaller factor in people's lives, we aim to make hard-work and good positive choices more important factors in their

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lives. This is how subsidizing bad luck leads to lasting prosperity in the long term. This is also why, just as we must subsidize bad luck, we must never subsidize bad choices. It is sometimes hard to distinguish between bad luck and bad choices, but at least we can say that getting hit by lightning is bad luck while refusing to get an education (when it is a viable option) is merely a bad choice. In most cases, we are faced with a mixture of bad luck and bad choices. This is why it is often a good idea to subsidize most the ones who are yet to make choices and thus cannot be blamed for making bad choices - children. I am the first to agree that not only have children not yet made any choices, but also that they are weak enough to require help in all ways. So children do deserve help. But nothing should be expected for nothing. If a parent is willing to do so much for a child, then the child should also be willing to do something for the parent. Being obedient to them, etc. is just part of it because it can never really repay the debt one owes to their parents as long as they are alive. This is why it makes sense for them to also be expected to be obedient etc. to their parents and further to take care of them even when parents are no longer looking after them. This is where the concept of 'loan' comes from: a child is so weak and helpless that it depends utterly on its parents in very fundamental ways. There is no way for anyone to ever really compensate for it when getting the benefits, so it must be left to the future when the child is grown up and has attained some degree of independence

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itself. But some people do not see how fundamentally different the morality of a child and an adult therefore is. A child is helpless and therefore also dependent. An adult is independent, so he should also be helpful. Thus, the point at which, on balance, one starts giving back instead of receiving, is the time when one really becomes an adult." "So what do you say to people who demand a nanny state that looks after them even when they have become adults?" "I would say that they may be adults in body and mind, but not in spirit. Everyone cannot be a net consumer. Someone has to produce, or at least take care of the goods that others consume. If you have not yet become prepared to take on this role, you are little more than a child. If you refuse to take the initiative, to work for what is wanted by not just you - but also others who are dear to you - then you still have a lot of growing up to do."

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Division of Labor "Why do you people have such rigid divisions between different occupations? Why must a warrior only be a warrior and not a scholar too? Why must a scholar not be a businessman? Don't you think that these hereditary divisions have weakened your society by forcing people into classes, one above the other?" "I agree that the hereditary nature of these divisions has weakened our society - as has the fact that currently these divisions are vertical divisions, putting one group above the other. However, to speak of these divisions as an unmitigated evil is something that I cannot agree with. If these divisions are seen as horizontal divisions and depend on the inclinations and abilities of individuals rather than on their heredity alone, it is actually a good thing." "Oh really? Why would you separate warriors form scholars? Don't you think that a warrior who is also a scholar would fight for better things than someone who is only a warrior?" "Possibly, but I would argue that this task of gaining scholarly opinions by a warrior may be better done by having scholars as advisors than by making warriors into scholars themselves. In fact, there are various things that are worth fighting for, and good ideas are but one of them.

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It is also worthwhile to fight for business that benefits all by efficiently distributiong goods, rather than for the sake of fighting. Similarly, natural resources, religious beliefs and technological advancements are all worth fighting for. The love of your people and acclaim by them is also arguably a better reason than just the joy of fighting.... however, this does not mean that a warrior needs to be all things that are worth fighting for. On the contrary, while a warrior should interact with people who all have such admirable qualities, he himself should ideally be dispensable - in other words, he himself should not have those qualities. In real life, what leads people to become men of war is their unbridled lust for power. A warrior who also tries to be a hundred other things will only confuse his own will. Further, if these qualities are instead encouraged in people who are not fighters - and the division between fighters and nonfighters is strictly enforced, what that means is that we have conventions against killings civilians. These become quickly lost to philosophies of total war when everyone can be a warrior and a warrior too can be anyone. With clear divisions between those who are warriors (by virtue of having to a critical degree the urge to dominate), and those who are not - we let the warriors satisfy their lust for power even as others keep working towards the advancement of civilization." "True, but can a similar argument be made for scholars?" "Of course. Scholars by definition need to spend most of

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their time dealing with concepts at an abstract and theoretical level. With their training, they are able after long periods of study to come to reasonable ideas of what is good and useful, and what is not. At this stage, it makes sense for their conclusions to be made known. But while the justifications for those ideas and other ideas that were explored as abstractions should be accessible to anyone who desires them or wants to challenge them, it does not make sense to display them even to people who are not interested in those subjects. Why is this? The fact is that there is so much information in the world that no one can possibly understand all the reasons behind everything that works and that does not work. Consequently, most people can go to the details of the reasoning behind only a few things, trusting authorities in other matters - confident that their conclusions will hold up against scrutiny. This is merely a consequence of the natural limitations of the human mind. Now, suppose you barrage people with abstract ideas and complex reasoning, not just conclusions, in areas that they have decided not to focus on. If you do this, most people will become annoyed at the extra reasoning that is being demanded of them, or will simply ignore the whole idea, or will equate what is being told to them with some kind of conclusion depending on what they want, ignoring any catch or disclaimer. This is why it is futile to make an intellectual out of everyone in all fields, when it is anyway so hard for someone to come to a reasoned position on even a single field. Because of all this, the internal workings of scholars are better off being

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isolated from the rest of the people who are not really interested in them anyway." "And the argument regarding businessmen being?" "Once again, most people just want the output produced by them, not to have competition between businesses determining political activity (in terms of granting monopolies, for example), nor do they want scholars to be conducting research with a financial agenda promoting certain results in mind. This is why business must also be separated from the rest of the society. In this way we divide society into various parts, each part interacting vigorously within itself in a tumultuous fashion. But each part interacts with other such parts in limited, clearly defined ways. This way, each part gets the benefits it can from the other parts but is isolated from the volatility and the violence that goes into getting those final products. That is what our caste system originally was, and this is why some people hold on to it even now when it has become rigidly hereditary and when it has become a vertical rather than a horizontal division of labor."

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Politics of Panacea "Various people have various political systems that they prefer: some people find that one political system will solve all the world's problems, while others find some other political system to be the one that will solve all the world's problems. Which of these varied political systems do you think will make the world a better place?" "Many people have this notion that there exists a political system somewhere which, if taken up by society as whole, will solve all human problems. But no matter what societal rules we have, they ultimately have to be enforced by people only. Whether you are in a capitalist or communist society, people can always exploit others - by paying them less than proportionately for their work when the ability to relocate is less, or by refusing to work and still sharing in the collective distribution of profit. Similarly, whether society as a whole is religious or atheist, people are susceptible to groupthink - either by belief in supernatural entities, or by the belief in the overawing ability of scientists or political leaders you allow to do the thinking for you. Ultimately, those who think to setup a social system where everyone will be happy are living a fool's dream because it is essentially impossible for one person to individually even understand the desires of all people, and further because of the many ways in which people tend to find joy in the suffering of others. Thus, while we do have duties towards

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others, it lies primarily in making sure that if someone has made an investment in us or has expectations form us, we either repay their investments or their expectations, or otherwise try to make up for our inability to do so. It does not consist in forcing them to believe certain things or to act in a certain way 'for their own good' - after all, we are not their guardians. While I understand that the happiness of one is inextricably linked to the happiness of others, the happiness of one need not be derived from the same sources as the happiness of others. Thus, if we truly are their well-wishers, we are better off seeing them as ends in themselves rather than as means to an end."

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Government "Earlier, you told me of your opposition to a nanny state. However, you have expressed your views many times about what a government should or should not do. If you feel that there are some things a government should do but that it should not aim to do all things for us - then what are the things a government should look at? What is the purpose of a government according to you?" "The purpose of government is not to make things for people: that is done well enough in the state of nature, or otherwise by private individuals without government acting as a difficult middleman. The purpose is to solve the problems arising in a state of nature: in other words, government must provide 1) safety from other states 2) safety from people inside its own state 3) legal enforcement of contracts. Generally, these things are required for people to be able to make long-term plans. Once people are ensured the protections which let them make long-term plans without infringing upon their freedoms (that are found in a state of nature) so much that they are unable to do productive work, they are best left to themselves to sort out other issues like what to produce and what is moral.

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Even other than these purposes, governments have been used to legalize morality: something about which it is questionable if there should be a monopoly in any large area. The problem seems to be that all long-term planning gets relegated to government, whereas it should be restricted to providing safeguards to enable long term planning in areas where the safeguards need to be provided by a monopoly, rather than by doing all the longterm planning itself. However, a government which acts merely for the shortterm without a view to enabling people to make long-term plans, is no government at all. It is merely a tyrant in a state of nature with its own subjects. Such a government serves no purpose.”

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Equality "We keep hearing about how it is a good idea to treat all as the same, seeing our selves in all. But even seeing our selves in all, knowing that we are all ultimately indistinguishable from each other, should we behave in the same way towards all?" "It seems that those theories like marxism and feminism which call for equality tend to be dishonest in the sense that they obfuscate the term 'equality' by taking it to be a given. Even if you try to specify it as, say, 'cultural and economic equality', still what does that mean? If we start treating women the same way as we treat men now, would it be okay with them? That would imply the expectation that they would take risks, be vilified and occasionally asked to die in wars to protect their relatives. Would it be ok for us to deny maternity leave to women because men don't get it either? Should they cease to have separate sporting events, instead being required to compete in a single unisex tournament? If these are not okay, would they rather have us treat men like women? But that would apparently be mere cruelty to them if we accept the premise that women have traditionally been oppressed. If neither of these, then probably they expect to evolve some new kind of unisex treatment for both sexes that is different from how both men and women have been treated in the past? Of course, that would still involve at least the

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following: 1) both sexes playing together in unisex tournaments and 2) men no longer being ripped off in courts in cases of divorce. Since they tend to oppose both of these, I assume they are not looking for any kind of unisex treatment. Thus, even if we are generous in our estimation of them, we can only assume that they are looking for specific kinds of equality for two fundamentally different entities (the different genders). Once we realize that, we can immediately see that the concerned notion of 'equality' must be a smokescreen, because if someone really wanted specific kinds of equality among different entities, they would focus on the domain wherein they wanted equality, not on the term 'equality' itself. In particular, the fact that they believe that equality must be achieved in a sense that is entirely determined by women is an indication that it is merely a special interest group for women, pretending to be seekers for justice. To this, the response can be made that since women have been oppressed historically, it should be up to them to determine how to seek equality. But the premise that women have been mistreated historically does not hold up against the observation that women would not like to be treated exactly like men, whereas every truly oppressed group would jump at the opportunity to have the same treatment as non-oppressed groups. Of course, we can further strengthen the argument by pointing out concrete instances like women having longer life expectancy than men, less women in jails, women getting lighter sentences for the same crimes as men, women not being forced to

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fight and die for their relatives, etc. - however, I believe the point has already been made strongly enough, and has little need of being further reinforced. This is thus a clear example of a group wanting further privileges without any moral scruples parading as a group who merely seek 'equality', thus conveniently using the fact that when you talk of equality for fundamentally different entities, you can pick and choose your notion of equality to make it anything but equitable. Another part of this is communism, where we seek equality in economic terms among various people. no matter how much you work, you got to get only as much as someone who does the bare minimum. But of course all inequality is not economic. It could well be that the one who is working harder is only doing so because he looks and talks in a weird way so no one likes him. The odds are already against him, due to factors not in his control. Then again, someone may be good-looking and good at talking to people and naturally is popular with others. This is not due to any work on his part, but merely due to good luck. Someone may be good at acquiring political power in communist politics because he is more ruthless and amoral than others, and can torture people for power. This inequality benefits those who are most ruthless and unscrupulous. All these sources of inequality benefit those who are merely lucky or those who are ruthless and unscrupulous. None of these are opposed by communists. Of course, people also derive economic benefits form

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being lucky and from being ruthless and unscrupulous. But there are characteristics it shares with forms of inequality that are unopposed or even condoned by communists. So to find out why communists only oppose economic inequality, we need to look at the characteristics which can help people economically but not so much in terms of other forms of inequality. I think we can put it down to 1) the willingness to work hard and in things that others are not willing to do 2) the ability to find creative solutions to problems 3) the ability to plan ahead. None of these seem so awful that people who benefit from it deserve to have their advantages taken from them while those whose advantages derive mostly from other sources get to keep them. Therefore, although communism uses the smokescreen of 'equality', all it equates to is a war on those who want to derive advantages largely from hard work, creativity and foresight - declared on them by people who want to rely more on ruthlessness and unscrupulousness. This is not to say that the latter sort of people generally do worse than the former one in noncommunist societies - in fact, due to the general human love for ruthless and unscrupulous people, they tend to do generally better in any society. It is just that in noncommunist societies, the former kind of people at least have a shot at a decent life. Communism is basically the drive to take even that away from them, disempowering them, branding them as traitors, imprisoning and killing them - all under the guise of 'equality'.

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In general, it seems that all movements for general 'equality' among fundamentally different entities say X and Y is a smokescreen for trying find 'equality' in the areas where X has an advantage, while not bothering with it in areas where Y has advantage. Since complete equality between fundamentally different entities is something of a conceptual impossibility, making a movement for 'equality' seems to be convenient way to pick and choose the kind of 'equality' you want, using the strategy outlined earlier with X and Y, basically acting as an interest group for Y, virulently opposing everything about X - and doing it all under the guise of equality. It is tempting to think that if the problem with notions of 'equality' is that they act as a smokescreen for being an interest group, we should be okay with genuinely treating everyone as the same. In a way, I do agree with this. But the problem with this is that 'treating everyone the same' is a statement that is void of any content. For example, suppose I said that one aspect of this would be that I would speak to everyone in Hindi. The problem with this is that not everyone speaks Hindi, and if someone knows only English, and I know it too, to speak to them in Hindi would seem to be a bad idea. Of course, no language is truly universal, so the same thing can be said about using English. This is just a very obvious example - and any number of less obvious ones can be made - that any notion of treating people the 'same' must deal with the fact that people have different needs, and in fact different

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values and other preferences. Also, this is not the only thing that needs to be considered. For example, suppose that I am dealing with two people, A and B. I borrow 100 dollars from A for some reason. Then after some time, suppose I had the money to repay the loan. Should I then, having recently made the decision to treat everyone the same, give 50 dollars each to A and B instead of the whole to A? Now, some naive guy can say that we should just wait till we have 200 dollars, and then give 100 to both A and B. Unfortunately, that solution does not scale to the case where we have billions of people to deal with, not just two. So what I am trying is that any meaningful notion of dealing 'equally' with people must necessarily deal with the fact that various people have made various kinds of investment in us. This being why it does make sense to generally give preference to one's family over other contrypeople, and contrypeople to others - because of the investment people have made in them. If someone invests time and money in us and we treat them the same as other who have not done so, it is the same as robbing them to pay the others - not something awesome. I do find it reasonable that only the needs of people and the investment they have made in them should determine our behavior towards them - with respect to other criteria we should have equal treatment, but it is clear that almost any kind of bias can be described in terms of those. So this notion of equality is hollow like other notions of equality, not being properly describable as a meaningful concept of 'equality'. However, although it may not be a meaningful

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notion of equality, it does seem a reasonable guideline for our behavior with others. And since the notion of 'equality' itself seems to be hollow, something not being a meaningful notion of equality hardly seems to be an argument against it. Further, while this does not go well with 'equality', this is in accord with what made us try for 'equality' in the first place - the understanding that we are not fundamentally distinguishable from others, and thus that we all can be seen as reflections of a single consciousness. To account for dealing with people purely according to what they have invested in us and what they need, it seems good enough to see for what reason the investment was made in the first place, and then 1) if it was made for a specific purpose that is not disagreeable to us for any other reason, to satisfy that purpose, or 2) if it was made without any discernable purpose, or if the purpose is disagreeable to us, to try to repay the investment that was made to us. It seems that this, rather than notions of 'equality', are a better way to reflect the notion of us humans being fundamentally indistinguishable from each other.”

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Leniency and Uniformity "Look at that man there, violating the parking regulations. I wish there was a law to shoot people like that." "Oh, but do you wish for the same thing to happen to you when you do so?" "I may have mistakenly violated some regulation sometime, but I have corrected it whenever someone has pointed it out to me. In other words, I am a law-abiding citizen. The laws are not made to deal with people like me, but with those who willingly abuse it." "So, which group do you think that guy belongs to? He may well be another guy like you, who has merely made a mistake in a hurry. In other words, you and that guy are in the same boat. But now let me ask you something: would you have been able to make such a statement if the regulations had been violated by a lawmaker?" "Why bother, they make those laws but are the most corrupt of people. Even if I wanted, there is very little to make him follow the laws he himself created." "So you take out your anger on other people just like you?" "It is not a question of anger: I merely feel that it would be

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good to make at least a few people law-abiding." "I understand your feelings, but you are only one of many people who feel helpless in making hotshots follow the law and yet keep trying hard to enforce them for others. This kind of helpless vigilante-ism makes the elites of the society have more and more power (by being able to make any sort of laws and knowing that people would fall over themselves enforcing them) with no responsibility (by knowing that no matter what laws they make, they themselves would not be subjected to it). It would be better to work towards the uniform applicability of laws by showing your vigilante acts towards lawmakers, instead of towards random mistake-makers." "Why do you keep talking about uniformity? Are you a socialist?" "I don't believe that different people necessarily deserve the same outcome for their efforts. This is because some people may have put in more effort than others towards what they desire, and giving some people better opportunities may benefit not just themselves but also who have put in efforts towards that even though the direct beneficiary may not have done so. Further, some people put in efforts more intelligently, thus benefiting others around them more - and thus also deserve to be benefited more than others who don't do so. Because of these facts, I cannot be called a socialist. However, while I believe

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inequality can be and is justified in a large variety of measures particularly economic ones, I also believe that public amenities like laws need to see all people equally. One reason for this is that a law which is not universally applicable, or applies with less force towards people with more power - is not a law at all. Instead, it is essentially just a tyrant's decree. When those who make laws are not affected by them, they feel empowered to make arbitrarily ruthless laws. On the other hand, if when making laws one knows that he and his loved ones too can be subject to them, it is more likely that such laws would be made that are reasonable and as lenient as possible. This is because the pain of being punished by a too-harsh law is far greater than the pleasure you can get by making such a law. On the other hand, if the laws are lenient and equitable, then the lawmakers too would be less inclined to jump in to save their near and dear ones from the laws they themselves make. They may even protest less violently when subject to their own laws." "So you are saying that this guy who broke the rules deserves to not be punished for that?" "I am saying that if you put in more effort in enforcing laws for the lawmakers instead of for such people, it would lead to lesser, more lenient laws. For instance, you would not have 34 laws regarding how and where to park. Such lenient laws could be easily enforced. Uniform application of laws and the presence of fewer, more lenient laws go

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hand in hand." "I see."

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Globalization "Wouldn't it be wonderful if there was just one world with one language, one culture, one religion, one government?" "Sure, it can look wonderful to someone who understands the misery of war - or even of enmity in general between nations, cultures, governments. But even if such a world was attained, do you think that people would all be the same?" "Sure, why not? Maybe they would not all be exactly the same, but they would become far more homogeneous than they are now." "Would a world where everyone is essentially the same as everyone else be desirable? Wouldn't you rather die than live among many 'you's'?" "Probably, but they don't need to be exactly the same... just mutually peaceful." "Is there anything in the history of humanity which suggests that? Indeed, the evidence is so much against it that even if such people did manage to live peacefully with each other, I doubt if they could really be called human beings at all."

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"Maybe, but don't you think that artificial geographical borders need to be removed nevertheless? Maybe people will differ among each other, maybe they will fight, maybe they will exploit - but at least it won't be for stuff like land and religion that currently drive wars." "Do you really think that simply because the subjects of war change, its effects too will change?" "Not necessarily, but consider the fact that in the absence of geographical demarcation among different peoples in a conflict, the parties in the conflict will necessarily be economically dependent on each other, and will otherwise be part of the same social networks as the others. This will prevent escalation of conflicts." "First of all, these factors haven't worked that well in the case of say nations that trade with each other. More importantly, in the absence of one world government, when hard working non-violent guys were oppressed by violent thugs, they have always tried to look for places to escape to. What this nation-less world essentially does is that it cuts off such routes of escape. What this must lead to is an increase in violence among people as non-violence becomes less and less tenable (being unaccompanied by the ability to leave, which is really all that non-violent people have even now). This naturally leads to a government which rules with an iron fist to curb this violence - once again targeting innocent people since they

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can't escape. Throughout history, civilization has lived because civilized people could walk away from violent thugs and make their own societies... if you take this away, you are left not with an utopia but with hell on earth."

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Future Generations "Your children get spoiled and waste away their youth, spending no time in study or learning, nor in cultivating their bodies or friendship. Yet you don't care - you just keep at your work, trying to make more and more money. Is this really fine?" "I am going to make so much money that my children will never have to work in their life. Is this not good enough? Not only will I make the money, I will also develop connections so that they can do whatever they want without suffering, simply enjoying the good things in life. Is this not good enough? Did I, as a youth, not want to fritter away my life in endless pleasure? Is it not only perforce that I have had to work so hard to be where I am today? Is it not good that my children have what I could only pine for? Why are you envious of them?" "It is not envy, but pity that I feel towards them. Consider the fact that the nature of needs change with times, and what you have left for them may not suffice when you are no longer alive. Also, consider that even if you have done enough to let your children glide through life, they will not be able to do the same for their children without learning any abilities. Also, a life without abilities necessarily becomes a life without purpose. For all but a few men, such a life may seem pleasant - but only when you are not

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actually living it. What good is it to have nothing to look forward to each new day? Being listless, bored and dejected is the very opposite of happiness. Even if you leave little for your children in terms of money and connections, you real inheritance would lie in the qualities you imbibed in them and in the skills they acquired due to you. It also lies in the memories of happy times you spent together. Of course, all these do in fact require money. But it is folly to regard money as an end in itself in such cases, instead of as a means to an end. You can look at the history of any family, any society, any nation - and you will see that to benefit the next generation through changes made to their attitudes and skills just works, the other way with trying to make children useless and then pamper them doesn't. This is because, at least on average, people get what they deserve more often than what they were given. Societies which try to disregard this rule by imposing artificially strong hereditary rules, only weaken themselves in the process. This is not to say that material things and other benefits should not be inheritable, rather that it should not be considered a moral prerogative to benefit your children entirely with such inheritances. Mere objects as inheritance do not count for much in the long run, and thus they deserve to be seen by individuals as unimportant." "I guess this can be seen as part of a more general principle of: cure the disease and not merely its symptoms."

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"Yes, and in its direct version, i.e. the one relating to physical ailments, it is easy to see that. However, it can become hard to see in general, especially in situations which we don't regard as containing problem areas 'diseases'. But the same principle applies in all these cases, which is also summed up by the following saying: 'Give a man a fish and he will east for a day. Teach a man to fish and he will generally keep eating'."

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Epilogue Unknown to Abos, these were the memories of his distant ancestors who had founded the Marahi civilization many millennia ago - if many different people in his dreams had expressed ideas that were largely similar to each other, it is because they had widely shared those ideas among each other in the Ancient Marahi Civilization. As the last Marahi, it was fitting that he see and understand the beliefs, the dreams and ambitions that had initially defined the course of the Marahi Civilization, and had subtly influenced it even after they had left their home planet for a new watery world far away in space. You may think that these dreams would affect him, inspire him in some way to keep on living and revive the Marahi empire. But as I have already mentioned, he was out of food and water. So after seeing those dreams, Abos did not wake up. Rather, he saw other dreams. Then he died. But it is rumored that Oxer, the king of the Rexans who finally quelled the minor rebellions in their planet and made them push towards outer space again, was Abos reborn and this time, the expedition did not go so badly. But I am sure you knew that already.

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Appendix: Witticism As part of his last dream, Abos saw his ancestor Gein interviewing the famous theologist Waat D. Faulkmann, from the sect of Witticism: "But why do you say that stars have no material existence?" "Well it's really simple, little one. If the stars had material existence, what would stop them from falling to the ground?" "True, but how else could this light get generated?" "The more important question is: how could all this dark get generated? It is a well-known fact that all things are naturally luminescent - this is a prime aspect of our theology. So for there to be such darkness, there has to be something keeping it out, something shutting in the world." "And what could that be?" "You see, the world used to be full of light. But then a demon decided to take it away from us. As you know, demons are shaped like humans, think like humans and even have customs like humans - very large humans, of course. So one day, a demon got jealous of all the

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happiness we used to have, and to make us miserable, put us all in a discarded old briefcase which he used to carry to work. Since then, there was total darkness for many years, before the great hero Mythzilphtulilack ascended to the heavens and made holes in the suitcase for light to come in from. First he made many smaller holes, then two larger ones. The first one, we call the moon, the next one, though only as large, was apparently near some bright object in the devil's world. This killed Mythzilphtulilack who was blinded by the light, and consequently put in hell. But it benefited us greatly." "But if these are holes, then why does their position keep on changing?" "That is observed to be the case simply because it is we who keep moving." "Doesn't it make more sense to assume that the demon was actually trying to protect us from being blinded by the light, and thus from falling into hell? After all, demons never share their thoughts with us, so maybe he actually did us some good in the end." "Yes, but then he would have put in some smaller sources of light too for our use, if he really wanted to help us." "Who knows, maybe that's really what happened. I am beginning to doubt this story of Mythzilphtulilack. After all,

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no one claims to have known him personally, no writings or sayings by him have ever been found, and no one could even have seen him in the absence of light. So I am assuming on one day, light suddenly arose from darkness and people invented a mythical hero to praise for it. Wouldn't it make much more sense to assume that perhaps the demon was a bit benevolent, rather than assume the existence of a hero, a hundred of whom could probably put an end to this cursed darkness once and for all? Wouldn't it make more sense to assume that therefore the stars are actually material objects put in there for our benefit?" "Ah, but that violates the most fundamental aspect of our belief, doesn't it?" "What do you mean? It still presumes the existence of the world and of the demon." "Yes, but haven't you read the very first line of our holy book, the Tractatus Religio Philosophicus? This line, our testament of faith, very clearly says: The world is all that is in the case. And you better believe it too: The world is all that is in the case."

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