Pi Gamma

Welcome to Pi Gamma. Pi Gamma occasionally publishes philosophical pieces that deserve a little exposure. Originally, Pi Alpha (Philosophical Investigations) began its life under the Philosophical Society of England, as a collaborative knowledge work. Pi Beta was and is a reinvention of Pi Alpha, a more traditional philosophy page. This, at one point, rose to no. 7 in the UK. Pi Gamma began its life as a mirror of Pi Beta. It now contains the original set of Pi Beta articles (about 100 more than Pi Beta itself), and focuses on fresh material. Thomas O. Scarborough.

An Existential Inquiry: Kierkegaard’s Quest for Meaning

by John Hansen *

Søren Kierkegaard is often thought of as the originator of existentialism – which is the notion that individuals can shape their own significance, objectives, and aspirations by using their freedom. We here explore, through Kierkegaard’s thought, existentialism’s unique way of creating meaning. 

Existentialism is distinguished from other systems of thought in various ways.

• While philosophies championing freedom, such as political liberalism, individual autonomy, and rejection of determinism share many similarities with existentialist thinking, existentialist philosophy commonly explores themes of attendant anguish, apprehension, or disquiet. In its emphasis on total freedom, existentialism differs from philosophies that promote freedom yet fail to examine its existential implications fully.

• While existentialism often speaks of an absurd or chaotic world, it tends to resist nihilism and despair. Rather, it highlights the significance of persevering and taking accountability to transcend the lack of meaning in existence without falling into hopelessness. It centres on the belief that there is always purpose in life, and seeks freedom from life’s absurdities when it meets meaninglessness.

• While existentialists accept that freedom of choice is associated with anxiety and ambiguity – existential anguish often being accentuated as an integral part of human life – they acknowledge that it also allows people to choose their own values and goals. In the view of existentialist philosophers such as Jean-Paul Sartre, all individuals are ultimately responsible for their actions and decisions.

• While existentialist philosophy often portrays the world as uncaring or lacking any predestined intention, those who choose to view their lives as purposeful may question their decisions and goals. In a process of internal reflection, they face their realities and find transcendent wisdom beyond the confines of the finite universe, even though it is often fraught with conflicting forces.

All of these characteristics contribute to a tension, or duality in existentialism – and, as a result, the existentialist must continually strive to reconcile their contradictory existence. On Kierkegaard’s theory, we are constantly in conflict with ourselves and with our societies. Adversity and paradox are inherent to the human condition.

At the same time, opposing aspects of human nature must be reconciled. A major dichotomy which Kierkegaard emphasised was that between the finite and infinite, the transient and the eternal. Based on Kierkegaard's philosophy, disparate forces engage in dialectical interactions. To uncover truth, one must actively grapple with the uncertainties of one’s being.

As a major example, in Fear and Trembling, Kierkegaard depicts Abraham’s unwavering determination to sacrifice his only son, Isaac, as a symbol of the struggle between faith and ethics. Abraham represents both being a father and having unwavering faith in a higher, divine authority at the same time.

As one finds in this pivotal story, Kierkegaard notes that humans try to grasp their existence and find meaning in their lives from their subjective viewpoints – through the exploration of first-person perspectives – among them ethics, principles, and liberties. A key feature of his writing is the importance which he places on the individual’s experience, authenticity, and engagement with existential issues.

The attention Kierkegaard places on the inner life of the individual contrasts with the widespread sentiments of hollowness and anguish in society today. Thus, Kierkegaard’s ideas still matter today – as is witnessed, for example, by a series of articles published in The Guardian in 2010, by Clare Carlisle – one such being titled, “Kierkegaard and the Pursuit of Meaning.” Duality entails an existential conflict that must be accepted for one to discover oneself.

Kierkegaard's systematic questions enable us to discover conflicting forces and go beyond the finite world in a way that cannot be achieved otherwise. His discussion of duality illuminates the fundamental inconsistencies of human nature. The process of existential inquiry evolves from being a purely philosophical journey to being one of faith and uncertainty as a result of introspection.

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* John Hansen received a BA in English from the University of Iowa and an MA in English literature from Oklahoma State University. His work has appeared in Philosophical Investigations, Philological Review, The Summerset Review, One Sentence Poems, Schuylkill Valley Journal, Litro Magazine, Wild Roof Journal, The Banyan Review, Drunk Monkeys, Midway Journal, and elsewhere. He has presented on a variety of topics at The National Institute for Staff and Organizational Development (NISOD), The Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC—Regional), The American Comparative Literature Association, The Midwest Conference on British Studies, and others. He is an English Department faculty member at Mohave Community College in Arizona. Read more at johnphansen.com.

Search for Meaning

by Youngjin Kang *

"What is the meaning of life?"

This is probably one of the most fundamental questions pertaining to the well-being of mankind. And many of us frequently ask it to ourselves, either consciously or subconsciously, for the sake of avoiding the eternal hellhole of existential crisis.

Yet, finding an answer to such a question requires us to clarify the implication of the word "meaning" in the first place. What does "meaning" really mean, anyways? There could be a wide spectrum of interpretations for sure, but the most obvious one is to regard the word "meaning" as a synonym of "purpose" in the context of biology.

We, as living things, constantly strive to survive and reproduce because it is what biological entities are predisposed to do. This is instinctual, and conscious effort is needed to suppress such a tendency. Since it is the apparent reality of things around us, it is by no means absurd to claim that the meaning of life is to survive and reproduce, and nothing more.

This, of course, feels a bit too shallow and incomplete. As long as we are intellectually flexible enough to let some philosophy dwell in our faculty of metaphysical delight, we retain our desire to muse upon the meaning of not just our biological bodies, but also the universe as a whole. Such an idea, however, does not provide us with a clear guideline for our thought process because it is mostly hypothetical.

The meaning of the world around us, in its entirety, is a rather vague concept to grasp because the very definition of the word "meaning" does not reside in such an abstract context. When people say that something is "meaningful", they typically mean that it is likely to bring some personal advantage to themselves, such as more money, improved health, better relationship, and the like. They might insist that it is supposed to benefit the whole of humanity and not just themselves, yet this is just the same secular notion being applied to a wider scale (i.e. Beneficial to a large number of people instead of just a few). If we are to discuss the meaning of the universe as a whole, outside of even the scope of humanity itself, it is necessary to admit that such a construct is more of a word play than something inducible from our experience.

If we wish to identify the meaning of life from a pragmatic standpoint, therefore, we must avoid groundless speculations and simply begin by investigating what we are supposed to be doing as biological entities. Only after we succeed in making sense of this, we will be able to expand our domain of reason further and manage to define the word "meaning" in a broader context.

The most primary goal we all share as human beings is to survive. As far as our practical definition of causality goes, all other goals are subsidiary to this root goal. For example, we search for food because the act of eating increases our chance of survival, and we seek shelter because the act of staying in a secure area increases our chance of survival. "Search for food" and "Seek shelter" are both goals, yet they are nothing more than subgoals which are aimed to serve their parent goal (i.e. "Survive").

Let us just suppose for now that our purpose is to live as happily as possible. This makes sense, doesn't it? We all want to be happy, and do not want to be miserable. We all want to survive, live, and prosper. This presupposition of value is unquestionable, as long as we do not venture to hypothesize with the very meaning of our existence itself.

The real problem arises, though, when we try to find out a rather specific way to achieve such a goal. There are countless alternative choices of action which may or may not work, depending on who we are. And since every one of us is a unique individual, a method which works for some of us may not work for others. We all have our own ways of living a happy life because we have different talents, preferences, personalities, physical traits, living standards, etc.

So, how to figure out the best way to live? This is probably the most baffling question you can ever ask to yourself, since you are the only one who can figure it out. You are the one who knows about you thoroughly, and thus nobody but yourself can come up with an accurate answer. And its main difficulty lies on the fact that you alone is the only subject you can observe and analyze when it comes to drawing an empirically sound conclusion.

This is indeed frustrating. If you do not know what to do with your life, you won't be able to motivate yourself to do anything in particular. And as long as this state of uncertainty continues, you will always be anxious and depressed.

Fortunately, there is a way to cure at least a significant portion of this problem. Although every one of us is a unique soul and thus requires a unique approach to life, we all share a set of traits which are common to all human beings.

For example, we all know that eating healthy meals, exercising daily, preferring love over hatred, being honest, and being diligent are good for us. These habits are so universally applicable, that one does not even need to question their effectiveness. The key lies on noticing these "common disciplines" and integrating them into your daily routine.

Take the habit of exercise, for instance. No matter what your profession is and what your personal predilections are, it is almost absolutely certain that doing SOME workout on a regular basis will benefit you in some way or another (unless you are suffering from a rare genetic disease, such as one which makes your muscles emit toxic chemicals whenever you use them). This means that, even if you are totally unsure of what you should be doing with your life, you can still be sure of the fact that you should be working out in order to stay fit. The benefit of this habit will not diminish no matter what path your life will happen to follow in the future.

This is the main takeaway of the analysis made so far. If you don't know what to do, at least do something that is worth doing regardless of your future choices. This behavioral guideline will give you a safety net to which you can always fall back whenever circumstances prevent you from making detailed decisions.

Here is the rule of thumb. Focus on doing something which you can manage to do on a regular basis without relying on external factors (e.g. your wealth, your job, place you live, relationships, etc). This will provide you with a "baseline layer of sanity" upon which you can keep moving forward with your life without having to constantly worry about the meaning of what you are doing. This will be the fountain of purpose from which you can drink an endless stream of hope.

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* Youngjin Kang is a software engineer who develops computer games, simulations, and other forms of interactive media.

To Be or Not to Be

by Veena Gupta and Surya Rao Maturu

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The time is 4.00 a.m. It is cold and dark outside.

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To Be or Not to Be, by Anatole Krasnyansky

Baby Hemlata: To be or not to be, that is the question. To get up or to go to bed again. Early to bed and early to rise. Is it still healthy, wealthy, and wise, or is it that the early worm gets caught by the early bird?

Am I a gnostic or a nastik?

To pray or not to pray, that is the question

And if to pray, then whom to pray to

Should I chant OM or should I keep silent

Should I close my eyes or should I keep them open

What should I request God as a boon

Or, am I for God just a character in a cartoon

Should I do yoga or should I go for a walk

Should I wear salwar-kurta or a trouser-tee shirt

Should I eat my breakfast now or at 6.00 a.m.

Mother: Oh ... Oh ... Baby Hemlata! Why are you disturbing me so early? I will wake you at 6 o’clock. Just SHUT UP and go to sleep!

Baby Hemlata: Oh, Mother, why are you so cruel? Why don’t you just answer some of my questions?

I wonder where all these come from!

Are there not a million myriad questions

And why are there so few answers

Is an answer born after one asks a question

Or, does it lie brooding, as a chicken inside an egg

Maybe there are infinite questions and equal number of answers

Only, you have to match them one to one

Exactly like our English test paper

Or, maybe there is one common answer to many questions

Mother: Yes. SHUT UP!

(Baby Hemlata gets up, washes, goes for a morning walk, returns, has breakfast, goes to school, and returns home)

Baby Hemlata: To be or not to be, that is the question

To bunk classes or not is also a question

To do homework on our own or not is a question

To copy cheat in the exams or not is a question

To grow up or not, is it a question?

To do engineering or medicine was the question in my mother’s time

Now, to do e-commerce or fashion designing is the question

To earn how much MONEY? and how? is the question

To marry or to TARRY, that is the question

If yes, to give dowry or not

To give it, or maybe I can even get a dowry myself ...

To marry a Punjabi or Bengali, or a Madrasi, or better, an NRI

Or, as a spinster, to live alone with my mother, that is the question

To live in a rented flat, or to buy our own DDA flat, that is also a question

(Mother is worried about her daughter. She rings up her family Doctor, Dr. Sumati, who comes over to check up Hemlata)

Dr. Sumati: Hello Baby Hemlata! Come here to Aunty. Let me see your tongue. Put this thermometer in your mouth. Let me take your B.P. Come sit near me.

Baby Hemlata: To be or not to be, that is the question
Welcome, Doctor, to our happy home
Do you doctor the Body, or the mind, or the soul?
Does allopathy treat a person whole?
Is not happiness half the cure?
Where is Joy, as in the songs of YORE?
Why, oh why, is LIFE, now, such a BORE?
Why has religion become such a HOLY COW?
Why cannot grown-ups just GROW?
Why should Adults behave childishly?
Why can’t women stand up to Men,
Instead of suffering like doormats?
Why is there so much cruelty, injustice, and despair?
Why is there so much hunger, and disease; is it fair?
Why is there: the Rich, and the Poor?
We got our Independence in 1947, are we SURE?
Why should children labour even now, morning till night?
Why should newly-wed brides burn like bonfires bright?
Why, oh, why, will anyone pray tell me why?

Mother (cries and weeps): Look at her, Doctor. I’m worried. My baby has gone MAD. What shall I do now? O! God, please help me and save my child (sobs).

Doctor: To be or not to be, that is the question, indeed
Baby Hamlet, of a writer, in you I see a seed
Fie, I defy my allopathy
I who wanted to be a writer, not a doctor
Indeed I’m tired of ministering to the body
Inside me, my own soul lies stunted and starved
Where has MAN arrived in this 21st century?
Why so much poverty, misery, penury
Why is there so much unhappiness
When will man become brother of man
When will woman become the mother, sister, and lover of man
When will India truly become independent
When will the government start governing
Will corruption ever cease to seduce
When will human greed ever reduce
Will glorious Bharat once again ascend to Glory
Or, was all that golden past, a mere story
Yes, we all have failed in our Duty
Child, we’ve mistaken the Beast for Beauty
We were too busy earning our bread
We go on hoarding our riches till we are dead
I confess we are not wise
We are foolish and small in size
Yes, when adults become children
Children begin to act like adults
Why should farmers kill themselves in hopelessness?
Why can’t a kisan get a salary or pension
Why should the poor get unemployment, illness and tension
Why can’t we wholly repair Indians
Why can’t we reapply our ancient wisdom
Once upon a time, there was no depression
No heart-attacks, no cancer
Peace was aplenty and prosperity was a merry dancer
Dharma, then, my friend, was a four-legged cow
But now, oh, now ………. and how?

Mother: Oh my God! Doctor! You too have caught this strange disease? Oh, pray, what shall I do?

Doctor: Relax, Lady, I am quite well
Baby Hamlet, too, is sound as a bell
She’s neither infected nor mad, thus I tell she is sane and sensible
She is in rhyme, immensible 
To the Muse she looks apprenticed
Yes, we all too ought to ask these questions
Yes, we all too ought to watch for the answers
It is a shame, we go on selfishly being happy, in our homes
While our brothers and sisters all around, are in deep pain
Pain that is a rain
Their lives dark as the monsoon clouds
Living with despair clothing them, as a shroud
Can a few Islands of Happiness, amidst an Ocean of Misery last?
Can a minority continuously feast,while the majority always fast
Let us break all our Lakshman-rekhas
Let us share all the suffering, Aankho-Dekhas
Our life is not Real, it is a TV-Soap Opera, a cartoon
Come now let us all sing!

(Mother, Doctor, and Baby Hemlata all join hands and sing together)

Vasudhaiva hi kutumbakam

Dharmo rakshati Rakshitalra

Sarve Jana Sukhino Bhavante

Sarve Santu Niraamaya

Sarve Bhadrani Pashyantu

Om Shanti, Shanti, Shantihi

(Curtain)

This play was censored by the L.D. Jain Girls' School 100th Anniversary Function Committee, so that its staging had to be aborted. Contact Surya Rao Maturu: <suryaraom@gmail.com>

Revisiting Aristotle's Noun

The Philosopher, Volume 101 No. 1

Centenary Conference Special Edition 1913-2012

by Thomas O. Scarborough 

 

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What is a noun? This has been the subject of intense study and debate since the ancient Greeks. In a sense, the answer is simple. A noun, it is said, is a word that names a person, place, or thing - a king, for instance, or a town, or an amulet. But then, what should one do with nouns that signify events or ideas - a dance, for instance, or an ideology? The question becomes increasingly complex - and so it is said that perhaps rather, a noun is something that a sentence, in a special way, cannot do without - which is to say, one focuses on syntax or morphology.

Yet there is a problem with these kinds of answer. Such approaches look at the noun's place in various classifications, its role in various structures - and though they may do this in great detail sometimes, still the essence of the noun would seem to remain largely opaque. One might say, metaphorically, that one has examined how the atom (the noun) binds to form molecules, yet one has not much peered inside the atom.

Far from being a trivial consideration, the question as to what a noun is may hold within it many secrets of our common life today - to the extent of defining the social construction of modern life. The answer to the question 'What is a noun?' may include within it the key to understanding semantic change, the variability of grammars, the problem of meaning, the fact-value gap. In fact, considerably more.

But let us begin at the beginning - with the noun.

In modern times, one has sought to understand the noun in static terms - in atomic, mechanical, structural terms. The textbooks typically speak of components, categories, features, elements, constituents, properties, units. The various metaphors, too, which have been applied to the noun in itself, have tended to be static: a capsule, a package, a chess piece, a unit of currency - items which in themselves are invariant. Yet this modern conception of the noun is not the same as the ancient one. The ancient Greeks viewed the noun quite differently. They viewed it as something dynamic - organic, synthetic, relational.

It was Socrates who first suggested that the noun may hide important secrets within. In Plato's Cratylus, a noun (example: anthropos, or 'human being') may represent a sentence While Socrates' train of thought seems whimsical, the seed is planted: It was once a sentence, and is now a noun. Here we find the tantalising suggestion that a noun may serve as a kind of wrapper for all that a sentence contains. Further, in Plato, a noun is seen to be something which 'distinguishes things according to their natures'. Yet what are their natures? Such fleeting suggestions foreshadow Aristotle, who, in his Metaphysics, further explores these notions.

Science and Humanity

by Allister John Marran

NASA's Double Asteroid Redirection Test, 26 September 2022

We have officially transitioned backwards as a species into an era of personal belief over facts, of emotion over intellect, of blind trust over earned authority.

We have striven to become significantly more fallible by sitting at the camp fire exchanging stories, choosing to first believe and then explore, a honeycomb of fictional realities.

Our little rock doesn't stand still. It moves at thousands of kilometres an hour around the sun, while rotating constantly on its own axis, with gravity pulling eternally—and yet some very clever people place explosives in a cylinder and fire it upwards, breaking free of our planet and then moving at thirty times the speed of sound to another celestial body which is also rotating around the sun on its own axis.

They aim the rocket at an empty point in space, knowing that the other planet will arrive at the exact moment the rocket does.

We can do all of that, and do it safely and reliably, not because of faith or emotion, not because of belief or trust. The numbers tell them it will be there, every time, to the second.

Science and mathematics do not care about your feelings or your complex personal belief structures. They do not worry about offending people or massaging ones’ scruples. It simply and succinctly solves a physical or theoretical problem as efficiently as possible.

Mathematics is the universal language. Unchanging and uncompromised.

But emotion and belief and trust are the language of mankind, it's what makes us human, a most endearing quality that allows love and hate, care and neglect, laughter and crying, and great triumph and cruelty.

The great works of Shakespeare and Tolkien and King and Koontz could simply not be written in the language of maths. They require a suspension of disbelief and an emotional core.

Because human behaviour hardly ever adds up.

But our strength is our weakness, and it's the exploitation of these analogue traits which has led us to place a greater importance on our beliefs than the facts.

More than ever, nefarious actors are taking the political, religious or social stage, and asking you to forget the truth, ignore the facts, trample the math, destroy the science and just believe them.

Trust them implicitly. Don't over-think, don't look too deeply, don't add it up or use common sense to interrogate the facts. Just trust them.

And so we now live in an age where conspiracy theoriests can mobilise an army, televangelists can ask their congregation for another eight hundred million to buy another jet, politicians can command more loyalty the more they lie and cheat and thieve, and Finding Bigfoot can enter a twelfth season without ever finding Bigfoot.

It's not necessary to destroy your humanity in order to defeat these exploitative forces trying to cajole you into believing nonsense. You don't have to stop your suspension of disbelief, or temper your emotion, or stop loving the ones you love.

You just need to compartmentalise or segment various types of knowledge and activity, and treat each one a little differently.

When you read Shakespeare or watch a romantic comedy or praise your God or watch your football team, let it all out, go to town, laugh and weep and give it your best.

But don't ever give a person the keys to your soul or your belief structure. Don't allow a politician to get you worked up. Don't let your guard down when you need to keep your wits.

Know when to use the language of people or the language of maths and science. Become fully bilingual and know when to change between the two.

I Stand in the Middle of the Ocean

by Tioti Timon *

In the middle of the ocean I stand
without anyone to help.
Days, months, and years have left me behind.
I search for my home,
I call you by name – Kiribati, Where are you?
Hear the voice of my song.
Rise up, rise up, you the centre of the world.
Arise from the depth of the Ocean
So you may be seen from afar
Be lifted higher, and higher
With no friends to help me
They left me days and years ago

—Tom Toakai

In the middle of the ocean means ‘the deep sea’ or ‘deep void’ where feet cannot stand. Standing in the middle of the deep sea means living without a grounding, or strong foundation to stand on. The tone of this song harks back to the 1960s, when Kiribati was still under the British Empire. With a limitation of natural resources, Kiribati relied on the phosphate island of Banaba as the only resource for its economic development.

However, the phosphate was mined by the British, and when it was exhausted, they granted us independence, and left us with a legacy that ignored economic development.** The impact of climate change reflects the continuous roughshod treatment of poor and small island nations like Kiribati, by the powerful nations of the developed world. We have been ignored, and now we are paying the cost of what rich countries are doing for their own benefit, development, and security.

The second line, ‘I stand without anyone to help, days and years’ expresses the complaint of the people of Kiribati, after being used, and then left to stand on their own without a single viable industry on the islands. Being left by the British with limited resources has given the people of Kiribati a hard time to develop their country. Even though Kiribati is poor, and constantly oppressed and victimised by the impacts of climate change, the song encourages the people to fight for their land, their rights and their freedoms.

The Kiribati phrase, ‘Ko mena ia?’ literally means ‘Kiribati, where are you?’ In this song, the composer reminds his people to call out the name of their country, which seems to be lost in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, after being left helpless by the British, and at the same time destroyed by the ignorance of rich countries. The composer suggests that calling out the name of a country is a source of strength, to enable its inhabitants to stand up for their country.

Even though Kiribati was left with very little, we should own the name of our country, and not accept that the situation is lost and hopeless, because we have our islands, and we also have our ocean—our home and refuge, our well-being and our future. We should not remain silent, but must keep on calling the name of our islands to rise from beneath the ocean. This means that we must not rely on other sources to build our lives, but rather to build with our own lands, culture, and ways of living. As islanders, we must return to our home, the home of our ancestors, our cultural ways of living, built by our own ancestral wisdom and knowledge, and not by foreigners.

‘Rise up from the ocean,’ serves to remind the people to rise and stand on their own feet, utilising their own knowledge and skills to bring out what is there in their ocean. It is a wake-up call to the new generation who are caught up with the influences of a new civilisation that replaces traditional ways of living.

‘Arise, arise from the bottom of the ocean, so that you will be seen by those from afar’ is thus a challenge for the islands to rise up, not only to cry out for help, but to do something about it for themselves. It is a call for action by the islanders themselves, to rise up as lights to the world, to tell the world that ‘We are the sea, we are the ocean, we must wake up to this ancient truth and together use it.’

We have a freedom which must not be allowed to be taken away again. We must not allow others to determine our own future, but rather create a future that matches our own plans and dreams. We need to learn from our experiences, the impact of globalisation and climate change ‘to cherish our identities and rediscover ourselves as guardians of the best for the next generations’.***

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* Rev. Dr. Tioti Timon is principal of Tangintebu Theological College in the Central Pacific.
** Tabai, Ieremia. 1987:42 . ‘A Kiribati View.’  *** 9th Assembly of Pacific Conference of Churches Report. 2007:17.

Picture Post # 79: Home

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'Because things don’t appear to be the known thing; they aren’t what they seemed to be

neither will they become what they might appear to become.'

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Posted by Priyanka Gupta *

 

 

Slum Dweller in Bangalore. Photo by Priyanka Gupta

 

Slums fill Bangalore city. Most of the people staying in them are construction workers who set up temporary abodes near the construction area. Sometimes you will see the slum dwellers going on with their regular activities out on the road. What option do they have?

The scene seems so complete and wholesome with the little girl child happily enjoying her play time in the toy car while watching her mother cook. But if I would have to cook on the street on a temporary earthen chulha every day, I would pull my hair out. Or would I?

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* Priyanka Gupta, a former investment banker, writes about alternative ways of living, learning, and exploring. Read more about her at On My Canvas.

Where Do Ideas Come From?

By Keith Tidman

 

Just as cosmic clouds of dust and gas, spanning many light-years, serve as ‘nurseries’ of new stars, could it be that the human mind similarly serves as a nursery, where untold thought fragments coalesce into full-fledged ideas?

 

At its best, this metaphor for bringing to bear creative ideas would provide us with a different way of looking at some of the most remarkable human achievements in the course of history.

 

These are things like Michelangelo’s inspired painting, sculpting, architecture, and engineering. The paradigm-shifting science of Niels Bohr and Max Planck developing quantum theory. The remarkable compositions of Mozart. The eternal triumvirate of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle — whose intellectual hold remains to today. The piercing insights into human nature memorably expressed by Shakespeare. The democratic spread of knowledge achieved through Gutenberg’s printing press. And so many more, of course.

 

To borrow from Newton (with his nod to the generations of luminaries who set the stage for his own influences upon science and mathematics), might humbler souls, too, learn to ‘stand on the shoulders of such giants’, even if in less remarkable ways? Yet still to reach beyond the rote? And, if so,  how might that work?

 

I would say that, for a start, it is essential for the mind to be unconstrained by conformance and orthodox groupthink in viewing and reconceiving the world: a quest for patterns. The creative process must not be sapped by concern over not getting endeavours right the first or second or third time. Doubting ideas, putting them to the test through decomposition and recomposition, adds to the rigour of those that optimally survive exploitation and scrutiny.

To find solutions that move significantly beyond the prevailing norms requires the mind to be undaunted, undistracted, and unflagging. Sometimes, how the creative process starts out — the initial conditions, as well as the increasing numbers of branching paths along which those conditions travel — greatly shapes eventual outcomes; other times, not. All part of the interlacing of analysis and serendipitous discovery. I think that tracing the genealogy of how ideas coalesce informs that process.

 

For a start, there’s a materialistic aspect to innovative thought, where the mind is demystified from some unmeasurable, ethereal other. That is, ideas are the product of neuronal activity in the fine-grained circuity of the brain, where hundreds of trillions of synapses, acting like switches and routers and storage devices, sort out and connect thoughts and deliver clever solutions. Vastly more synapses, one might note, than there are stars in our Milky Way galaxy!

 

The whispering unconscious mind, present in reposed moments such as twilight or midnight or simply gazing into the distance, associated with ‘alpha brain waves’, is often where creative, innovative insights dwell, being readied to emerge. It’s where the critical mass of creative insights is housed, rising to challenge rigid intellectual canon. This activity finds a force magnifier in the ‘parallel processing’ of others’ minds during the frothy back and forth of collaborative dialogue.

 

The panoply of surrounding influences helps the mind set up stencils for transitioning inspiration into mature ideas. These influences may germinate from individuals in one’s own creative orbit, or as inspiration derived from the culture and community of which one is a part. Yet, synthesising creative ideas across fields, resulting in multidisciplinary teams whose members complement one another, works effectively to kindle fresh insights and solutions.

 

Thoughts may be collaboratively exchanged within and among teams, pushing boundaries and inciting vision and understanding. It’s incremental, with ideas stepwise building on ideas in the manner famously acknowledged by Newton. Ultimately, at its best the process leads to the diffusion of ideas, across communities, as grist for others engaged in reflection and the generation of new takes on things. Chance happenings and spontaneous hunches matter, too, with blanks cooperatively filled in with others’ intuitions.

 

As an example, consider that, in a 1959 talk, the Nobel prize winning physicist, Richard Feynman, challenged the world to shrink text to such an extent that the entire twenty-four-volume Encyclopedia Britannica could fit onto the head of a pin. (A challenge perhaps reminiscent of the whimsical question about ‘the number of angels fitting on the head of a pin’, at the time intended to mock medieval scholasticism.) Meanwhile, Feynman believed there was no reason technology couldn’t be developed to accomplish the task. The challenge was met, through the scaling of nanotechnology, two and a half decades later. Never say never, when it comes to laying down novel intellectual markers.

 

I suggest that the most-fundamental dimension to the origination of such mind-stretching ideas as Feynman’s is curiosity — to wonder at the world as it has been, as it is now, and crucially as it might become. To doggedly stay on the trail of discovery through such measures as what-if deconstruction, reimagination, and reassembly. To ferret out what stands apart from the banal. And to create ways to ensure the right-fitting application of such reinvention.

 

Related is a knack for spotting otherwise secreted links between outwardly dissimilar and disconnected things and circumstances. Such links become apparent as a result of combining attentiveness, openness, resourcefulness, and imagination. A sense that there might be more to what’s locked in one’s gaze than what immediately springs to mind. Where, frankly, the trite expression ‘thinking outside-the-box’ is itself an ironic example of ‘thinking inside-the-box’.

 

Forging creative results from the junction of farsightedness and ingenuity is hard — to get from the ordinary to the extraordinary is a difficult, craggy path. Expertise and extensive knowledge is the metaphorical cosmic dust required in order to coalesce into the imaginatively original ideas sought. 

 

Case in point is the technically grounded Edison, blessed with vision and critical-thinking competencies, experiencing a prolific string of inventive, life-changing eureka moments. Another example is Darwin, prepared to arrive at his long-marinating epiphany into the brave world of ‘natural selection’. Such incubation of ideas, venturing into uncharted waters, has proven immensely fruitful. 

 

Thus, the ‘nurseries’ of thought fragments, coalescing into complex ideas, can provide insight into reality — and grist for future visionaries.

 

Neo-Medievalism and the New Latin

By Emile Wolfaardt

Medieval Latin (or Ecclesiastical Latin, as it is sometimes called), was the primary language of the church in Europe during the Dark Ages. The Bible and its laws and commands were all in Latin, as were the punishments to be meted out for those who breached its dictates. This left interpretation and application up to the proclivities of the clergy. Because the populace could not understand Latin, there was no accountability for those who wielded the Latin sword.

We may have outgrown the too-simplistic ideas of infanticidal nuns and the horror stories of medieval torture devices (for the most part, anyway). Yet the tragedy of the self-serving ecclesiastical economies, the gorgonising abuse of spiritual authority, the opprobrious intrusion of privacy, and disenfranchisement of the masses still cast a dark shadow of systemic exploitation and widespread corruption over that period. The few who birthed into the ranks of the bourgeois ruled with deleterious absolutism and no accountability. The middle class was all but absent, and the subjugated masses lived in abject poverty without regard or recourse. There was no pathway to restation themselves in life. It was effectively a two-class social stratification system that enslaved by keeping people economically disenfranchised and functionally dependent. Their beliefs were defined, their behavior was regulated, and their liberties were determined by those whose best interest was to keep them stationed where they were.

It is the position of this writer that there are some alarming perspectives and dangerous parallels to that abuse in our day and age that we need to be aware of.

There has been a gargantuan shift in the techno-world that is obfuscatious and ubiquitous. With the ushering in of the digital age, marketers realised that the more information they could glean from our choices and conduct, the better they could influence our thinking. They started analysing our purchasing history, listening to our conversations, tracking key words, identifying our interests. They learned that people who say or text the word ‘camping’ may be in the market for a tent, and that people who buy rifles, are part of a shooting club, and live in a particular area are more likely to affiliate with a certain party. They learned that there was no such thing as excess data – that all data is useful and could be manipulated for financial gain.

Where we find ourselves today is that the marketing world has ushered in a new economic model that sees human experiences as free raw material to be taken, manipulated, and traded at will, with or without the consent of the individual. Google's vision statement for 2022 is ‘to provide access to the world's information in one click’. Everything, from your heart rate read by your watch, your texts surveyed by your phone’s software, your words recorded by the myriad listening devices around you, your location identified by twenty apps on your phone, your GPS, your doorbell, and the security cameras around your home are garnering your data. And we even pay for these things. It is easier to find a route using a GPS than a map, and the convenience of a smart technology seems, at first glance anyway, like a reasonable exchange.

Our data is being harvested systematically, and sold for profit without our consent or remuneration. Our search history, buying practices, biometric data, contacts, location, sleeping habits, exercise routine, self-discipline, articles we pause our scrolling to peruse, even whether we use exclamation marks in our texts – the list continues almost endlessly – and a trillion other bits of data each day is recorded. Then it is analysed for behavioural patterns, organised to manipulate our choices, and sold to assist advertisers to prise the hard-earned dollars out of our hands. It is written in a language very few people can understand, imposed upon us without our understanding, and used for financial gain by those who do not have our best interest at heart. Our personal and private data is the traded for profit without our knowledge, consent, or benefit.

A new form of economic oppression has emerged, ruthlessly designed, implemented by the digital bourgeois, and built exclusively on harvesting our personal and private data – and we gladly exchanged it for the conveniences it offered. As a society, we have been gaslighted into accepting this new norm. We are fed the information they choose to feed us, are subject to their manipulation, and we are simply fodder for their profit machine. We are indeed in the oppressive age of Neo-Medievalism, and computer code is the new Latin.

It seems to have happened so quickly, permeated our lives so completely, and that without our knowledge or consent.

But it is not hopeless. As oppressive as the Dark Ages were, that period came to an end. Why? Because there were people who saw what was happening, vocalised and organised themselves around a healthier social model, and educated themselves around human rights, oppression, and accountable leadership. After all – look at us now. We were birthed out of that period by those who ushered in the Enlightenment and ultimately Modernity.

Reformation starts with being aware, with educating oneself, with speaking up, and with joining our voices with others. There is huge value to this digital age we have wholeheartedly embraced. However, instead of allowing it to oppress us, we must take back control of our data where we can. We must do what we need to, to maximise the opportunities it provides, join with those who see it for what it is, help others to retain their freedom, and be a part of the wave of people and organisations looking for integrity, openness, and redefinition in the process. The digital age with its AI potential is here to stay. This is good. Let’s be a part of building a system that serves the needs of the many, that benefits humanity as a whole, and that lifts us all to a better place.