Harm

In India there is the idea of Ahimsa: non violence. While we all aspire to not be violent it isn’t that simple.

Every day we are harmed and we harm. Someone may get annoyed with us and say something hurtful. We may be successful at something and others may be spiteful and wish to harm us. We may innocently eat some meat, but inadvertently rely upon the animal having been harmed. We may watch a film and wish that someone becomes harmed. We may watch the news and support the harming of others. We may buy some cheap clothes knowing that they are cheap because the manufacturer doesn’t pay a good wage thus harming the workers. We may drive dangerously, or eat unhealthy foods, or smoke knowing that these may do some harm to ourselves. We may be unkind to ourself being harsh and critical of what we are or have done. We may deep down have come to not value ourselves and treat ourselves poorly. There may even be moments where we even take pleasure in harming others, moments in films or the Roman colloseum where macabre and voyeristic pleasures arise from the suffering of others. Harm has many guises.

So I’ve classified this into 5 types. (1) Harm that arises by accident e.g. hitting someone while driving carefully (2) Harm that arises through ignorance e.g. eating meat (3) Harm that arises intentionally but for good reasons e.g. the killing of Osama Bin Laden (4) Harm that arises intentionally for bad reasons e.g. shooting a bank guard, self harm (5) Harm that arises for pleasure or for its own sake.

(1) Cannot be avoided. If we respond with the intention of easing the distress this is actually no longer harm. Trying to avoid responsibility or distance ourselves from the situation is not the best response. Making it so that it is lucky we were the person involved turns things around. Harm is bad, our goal is to reduce harm.

(2) If we are genuinely unaware then this is like 1. However if we are sensitive the thought should eventually arise that we are actually causing harm and we should act the reduce distress. Harm is bad, our goal is to reduce harm.

(3) Because we believe we are doing good this type of harm is complex. Great evils have been committed under the belief it was good, for example the allied bombing of innocent civilians in WW2 accounting for the deaths of over half a million men, women and children. Whatever our reasons this is harm. A simple thought is to consider what it would feel like if the Axis powers had killed half a million US civilians. It is harm regardless who it is done to. Irrespective whether such a world is possible, we need be clear that the best world is a world without such harm occurring to any one. If there are evil people who are intent on harming us, we may indeed need to harm them in order to stop them harming, but out intention must be to reduce the harm done. If we don’t understand this, when we are harmed we may become angry and wish to do harm ourself. We are now agents of evil not good and so harm multiplies and spreads. When we do harm to others if they are unwise they will wish to do harm and so on in a chain reaction until it finds wise people who will soak up the harm. Harm is bad, our goal is to reduce harm.

(4) This is simpler however most criminals think they are justified in what they do. I robbed the bank because I have a family to feed, or the rich people who put money in the bank can afford to lose it, or the bank will just write it off and no one has been harmed. The guard who I shot should have just backed off, it wasn’t worth his silly wage packet to protect the bank: he is a fool. However whatever the reasons harm has been done. On the flip side people who have had their money stolen may get angry and wish the robber harmed. Perhaps a death penalty in punishment for shooting the guard. This is also increasing the harm. Harm is bad, our goal is to reduce harm.

(5) This is the most complex. De Sade famously wrote about the life of unrestrained pursuit of pleasure. As a pure individual our pleasure is the most important thing even if it results in harm coming to others. This is the Libertine philosophy. We may even enjoy inflicting pain on others, experiencing the power that comes from such position of “superiority” and “dominance”. I wonder what was in the minds of Romans at the colloseum watching half a million people put to death for the crowd. These people were being executed by the state for being bad, so no one had to feel any sympathy for them. It was a pure spectacle of state power and the submission of Rome’s enemies to the sword, fire, dropping from cranes, or wild animal or whatever diverse way of execution. De Sade had justified the harm in that he believed in “himself” as powerful and justified, just as the Roman crowd had done. However again we need only consider what it would be like to be a victim of De Sade’s imagination or the Roman state to know that this predicament is not our first choice.

We may consider being released to the lions as having some sporting value. We would have a chance to prove our strength and perhaps be victorious punching the lions eyes out and strangling it. Perhaps we would gain favour with the crowd. Perhaps we might beat De Sade and prove that we’re actually stronger than the pain he wished to inflict, not giving him the satifaction of beating us. Perhaps we are low in life, hating ourselves, suffering so much ourselves that we welcome the suffering and death as a release from our own torment. Certainly when we are in suffering it makes it very hard to accept peace and love ourself. But at root all these are not comparable to being without suffering and distress. We would always chose freedom from distress. And so likewise we know that other’s (including animals) will always chose freedom from distress.

Now that for a minute plays into De Sade’s and the Roman state’s hands. He knows despite the strength of the captive that they would prefer freedom from distress, and he has the power to deny them this freedom because of his own freedom. However De Sade has a problem. He believes in himself, in his own pleasure beyond that of others. What he doesn’t see is that he isn’t that free because he needs to experience that freedom through oppressing other people and effectively stealing their freedom. The Roman state could only prove its existence and power by oppressing people in the colloseum. Remove the captives and suddenly everything goes empty. Indeed the self depends on others in whatever mode we chose from a mode of harm to a mode of help. Fact for everyone is that we take pleasure and depend upon in others whatever the mode. If we take pleasure in harming others we will find relationships with others very difficult, ard work and complex; if we take pleasure in helping others we will find relationships effortless, automatic and simple. We are, by ourselves, nothing. Looking inside ourself we see that there is nothing there: it is an empty space in which feelings, thoughts, memories arise but we ourself are nothing! Ironically the psychopath sees other people as empty, he’s half way there he only needs to see himself as empty too and then he can see he is the same as others.

So what of troubling feels arising from pleasure at harm. The soldier who experiences exhilaration fighting, or the boxer getting a rush as he crushes his opponent. Such things happen. The point is to realise clearly that such pleasures and out comes are not as good as love, mutuality , equality, cooperation, joy and helping. Harm is bad, our goal is to reduce harm.

So what is Heaven like. The Vikings believe the perfect Heaven was heading into battle every morning, killing and dying again, resurrecting and celebrating every evening at a huge victory feast, getting drunk with an endless supply of beer delievered by voluptuous celestial maidens, sleeping and arising to do it all over again. Quite a busy heaven. I wonder tho what of a heaven where we can seek peace. The Chinese saying goes, “the wise value peace over pleasure”.

We are in a bright space with gentle music, it is warm and a faint fragrance of meadows and flowers is in the air. We are lying down at ease, comfortable with our head in the lap of our celestial guardian. She/He is wise and infinitely kind and wishes us no harm, but only wishes the best for us. They know our thoughts, our deeds, our feelings: they know that all things are well now and no harm can arise within us or around us. We can relax and know that all things are good. It is safe to feel love for them, to feel affectionate, to enjoy their company, they are feeling infinite kindness and love for us. We may have some anxieties arise: maybe we think we will be punished for something, maybe it is too good to be true and we don’t deserve this, maybe we think we will get lazy and lose the strength to be independent, maybe we will feel guilty for things we have not done, or feel an urgency to get on with things we must do or assist people we are responsible for, maybe we will become anxious about it ending, perhaps we may feel bored, or feel afraid, or hateful… there are many forms that disturbance and distress take. Our celestial guardian knows all these things and assures us that everythink is well and is being taken care of, there is nothing for us to do. We are free from distress, discomfort, worries, suffering; we are safe, we are healthy, we are at ease, we are loved, we are valuable, we are happy, we are content, we are at peace like the surface of a still pool of water in the deep emerald forest.

Now while thoughts may arise like “how long can this peace last” or “this is not practical, how can I eat or pay y mortgage” or “my guardian is wasting their time with me”, these are simply example of distrurbance, distress and harm. Nothing wrong is them, we just let them come and go. Peace means to let things come and go by themselves and experience just the simple joy of the present moment.

Now compared with the Viking in Valhalla this Heaven is boring. But we have an advantage over the Viking: we are not running away from boredom. Boredom is just one of those things that disturb us and keeps us from peace. Are the Vikings really that afraid of being bored?

Once we know peace for ourself and are clear that it is the best state of mind, we are in no doubt that harm is never good. Harm is not something that can benefit ourselves, and it is not something that can benefit other people either. Maybe when our celestial guardian sees the time to return us to our usual world we see that there is no one out there who has that patience and love for us. Indeed very few people do. But what we can do is, now we know the deep value of Peace, we can take the place of that celestial guardian and try and at least make a Heaven for someone else. And we should be careful not to criticise ourselves and feel down or bad when we fail as this is simply more harm. Anything done to reduce harm is the goal of Heaven. And we can always return to our own celestial guardian when ever we want: that peace is always there inside us when we want it once we give up harm. And the more we experience and know Peace the stronger and easier to find it becomes for us. Harm is bad, our goal is to reduce harm. May all being be free from harm. Ahimsa.

The eye, SRH and Fractals

 

The image on the retina of an eye is upside-down and leftside-right compared with the object.

So which do we see: the object or the image? If we put on red spectacles the world becomes red. Clearly we don’t see the object--which is unaffected by the spectacles--but the red image that occurs on the retina. So likewise we actually see an upside down and leftside right world.

To test that things are the wrong way around , carefully press the bottom right of our eye ball. We will see a black spot appear on the top left of our vision. Think about this with the picture above. If we press the bottom of the retina the black spot will occur near the head of the person, in other words at what we call the top.

But we have two worlds at our disposal. There is the physical tactile world where we can lift our arm up and feel the motion against gravity in our stretch receptors. This is the same world that tells us when we move our eye ball upwards. Conventionally this the movie watcher. Then we have the other world within the image of our eyes: the conventional movie screen. The conventional view is that the movie watcher is correct and the brain “turns” the movie screen upside down and leftside right so that what we “see” corresponds to what we feel. You look at the top of the movie screen and you see the heads of actors, and the bottom the feet of actors.

However does the idea of flipping the movie screen actually achieve anything?

If we take the picture above and press at the bottom of the eye the black spot appears above the head of the person. If we now look DOWN at the feet of the person in reality the image on the retina moves DOWN so that the feet become centre on the retina. The subject actually see the person move up to move the feet into centre place of the image. If we touch the bottom of the eye ball the black spot now appears near the middle of the person. Everything works without any flipping of images.

I admit I need to consider this further to check, but so far I see no need to introduce “flipping” operation in a brain that doesn’t need them, or where they actually mean nothing. Up and Down are relative.

It has an interesting implication. If we try and work out whether things are “really” Up or Down we get into a problem. The very picture above is flipped on our retina. So what is UP becomes DOWN and vice versa. The “retina man” picture is the real UP as shown in Fig 2. However when we look at Fig 2 the “object man” is the real UP. When ever we try to represent what is happening in the eye we will get things the wrong way around compared with “reality”. This is because of SRH. The eye cannot represent its own functionality, unless that function is identity. We are using the eye in the system that is processing the eye. This is doomed to problems and fractals. Obviously we can keep duplicating, scaling a flipping these images infinitely to generate a fractal. Much like pointing a video camera at the video screen showing its image. This simply scales the image. Our lens also flips it!

 

So how do we answer it? We just have the accept that the “real” up looks down in our world. But since everything else is down, that as good as to say things are the right way around. So when a person stands on their head, their image on our retina is actually the right way around to a researcher looking at our eye. But someone should remind him that this image is upside down on his retina before he draws any conclusions about what the real “up” and “down” are!

Cantors definition of Infinity relies on SRH

Infinity is not a number. It is the number of numbers.

So we have the idea of counting. 5 Sheep, 10 fingers etc. Let us call this method c(x) = number of x so that c(sheep in this field) = 5. c(appendages to my hands) = 10.

Now what if we do an SRH: c(numbers) = ?

The answer CANNOT be a number by SRH. So when we apply c() not to an element of its domain, or even an element of its range, but rather to its whole range the result cannot be in the range! It is called infinity. But infinity I'm suggesting is just the result of the super general SRH, rather than something unique to numbers. Or vice-versa infinity is an excellent example of the super general SRH.

Now why is it that if we have 2 sets X,Y with elements {x1,x2,...xn} and {y1,y2,...yn} and a function f such that

f(xi) -> yi

f(Y) if it exists -/> Y

it implies that Y must be a member of itself.

So that the counting numbers themselves can be counted. But the result is not a counting number! Isn't there a contradiction here?

{all counting numbers n} = N
e, in set of
-e, not in set of

X = {set of things x}
c = give count/cardinality of x

c(x e X) e N

if N e X

c(N e X) -e N  (by SRH)

but N e X contradicts c(x e N) e N !!!!!!!

Tonight I'm getting over you

Bit inspired by Carly Rae Jepsen: ain't it time I got over "my muse"?

So here are the remaining issues after 15 years of musing this one.

(1) The belief it meant something for real. Here is the alignment of planets the night we met. Saturn, Moon, Jupiter, Uranus, Neptune, Venus, Mars and Mercury -- the solar system in a line. Obviously absurd to suggest it means anything, but we hold onto beliefs. I felt instantly that we had met before in past lives, that I had waited my whole life to meet her, I felt she would not live long: she didn't. My last words were that I would see her in another life. I felt I would wait until then. We have our beliefs that sustain us long into the dark after the lights are out and the party has ended and everyone has one by one left.

(2) So breaking up is painful. It is painful if we are rejected, it is painful if our love dies, it is painful if they actually die: it is painful when it goes wrong. On the other hand it is blissful when it goes right. So what do we do?

2.1) First approach: try and get over the "love" first by looking for someone else. But the old memories persist, no one is the same, and we can only try and deny how we feel. Started this one even while I knew her.

2.2) We may persist in trying to get over them by continuing to hold onto them. It isn't over I'm not going to face the pain. We can find reasons, we can find beliefs to support us. Most powerful is the argument of True Love. Long argued in this blog years ago. How can we love again? If we do love again then it wasn't True Love, if we wish to preserve and honour that experience as True Love then we can't love again. If we feel that it was True Love and we can't imagine ever feeling like that again, we can provide a very strong argument to just get stuck and not grow and move on with what we have. An argument to swap the Future for the Past. I started this one in 2000 and then again after her death in 2006. I won't argue for or against the True Love arguments, only just acknowledge that such beliefs exist and focusing on them will help get us very stuck. The way on is elsewhere. What would our love want anyway?

2.3 ) Then we may get really serious about this denial. Love is an illusion, no one needs it, we can live without it. What is love anyway? If we can only find a way to live without it we can be free from all this nonsense and pain. Jesus, Buddha, monks, many all find this way: surely it exists. We might get scientific (as I've heard a monk argue): it is only chemicals in the brain; or, as a biologist, it's just an evolution to encourage childbirth. In both cases it is an addiction to force us into reproduction. What real satisfaction lies in biological preprogrammed impulses that are imposed on us by our body? I began this one in 2008.

(3) Tried them all. Five year later in 2013 I had succeeded in turning down all temptations to relationship and love, and escaped all sexual desire and wish for partnership. Needing someone was an illusion and I was free from the time wasting. A friend did an ancestor ritual in Gaya in which he included "my muse" without telling me. A third of the way around the globe I felt a physical chord snip--as if by scissors--to my top right. I told him, he told me; seems there might have been a connection: so I was free. But a seed remained, something wasn't quite right. There was denial still.

So 2015 things turn around I decide to explore back up the path, to reengage with where I was 18 year ago. Thanks to CRJ guiding me toward those now distant, almost forgotten, feelings I see an obvious flaw in the argument. If I really didn't need "love" them why was I at first seeking it, and then running from it? Indeed I was awake all night and running from it the night I met her: I was afraid because I was out of my depth on day one. If it is just an addiction, or an evolution (which it may be) this doesn't help me *now* because I was seeking it. And this leads into the proper way to get over them.

The door out, involves going through the door in. There are feelings, there are experiences that are part of the case, that we cannot and must not deny if we are to be a good detective and progress with the case. They are painful, they may be joyful, but both cannot be denied. It is in those feelings that we find our Self. Run away and we avoid our Self. Live in fear of them and we hide from our Self. But if we think we are free it is a myth because our every action is governed by what we are running from. Our freedom is a trap, and the punishment we fear is actually our freedom. We must one day face it.

And yes it does feel like punishment. And we look at what was so beautiful that has turned around to hurt us and we can't believe the injustice. While other lives in joy we who almost tasted that joy now experience a brutal punishment. That punishment is for not yet understanding how to get over you. If we learn this we have the greatest prize of all. We can love without fear.

Call it karma, perhaps, but those experiences good or bad are ours and we must have the strength to be ourselves and experience what is ours, take feelings on the chin, weather the storm, stop and enter the door to see what they really are, and come through it. In Buddhist language we must cross to the other shore. On the other side is our true Self free from these difficulties. It won't kill us, its not even real, it is only a conversation of feelings with our self, but they are part of our self and we do ourselves an injustice if we don't face up and listen to them. We like to think we don't need to listen, or stop for these things. We are bigger than that, why should I stop, I AM myself already, self contained and invincible, who am I stopping for? We should stop because that is our greater self calling! This self is yet incomplete, like a child trying to run away from home, it will hurt. They call this immature self Ego.

So finally the mystery that still eludes me. Buddha speaks of non-attachment. This means no more than having the ability to say "tonight I'm getting over you". To have that ability is enlightenment. But if we have that ability what is being in love like? If we like love, we don't like losing love, and if we don't like losing love how do we "get over you"? Pretending we don't like love does not work! (See above). And trying to train ourselves not to like love does not solve the problem, it simply avoids it. Quite how we do it is a mystery still, but all avenues that try to avoid the problem, and avoid going through the door of pain are wrong. We do like love, we do seek it, and we do find it goes wrong sometimes. Who knows why, but if there are answers we need listen to our big self for them. This is the last remaining door that we must go through.

Was that interesting event that improbable?

 

If one’s attention is drawn to an event of interest, how does one post hoc try to work out the probability of that event?

It is a common event that we hear of extra-ordinary coincidences. What is improbable going forward say the probability of a meteor hitting our house, is much more probable if we wait for an interesting event of unspecified description and then work back. This “framing” problem is what makes the probability so hard to determine. A probability is calculated as a ratio of the actual event count to the potential event count, and when we allow for any event there are is a vast array of potential improbabilities to select from.

As an approach to this problem consider waiting again.

A rare event occurs in time t. If we accept the frame now decided upon by that event, we must estimate the mean.Using exponential distribution the significant probable mean must fall between 0.05<=p<=0.95.

p = 1-Exp(-r x), r = -Log(1-p)/x

0.051 <= r <= 3.000

So stopping the clock when an event of interest arises means we can safely conclude that these events are occurring at between 0.05 and 3 per this time interval. Given that 3 per this time interval is unlikely to be interesting the range will be biased to the rare side, but how much?

Another approach might be conditional probability. Given that the event is sufficiently rare to be of interest what is its improbability!

The Math of Waiting

Too long waiting for buses and other uncertain events leads me down this road:

Given an event occurring on average at 1 per hour (m = 1) we can see the probability of the event having occurred after m hours with the exponential distribution.

Some values of p for t:

x	p
0	0
1	0.632121
2	0.864665
3	0.950213

If expecting an event on average every unit of time U then after 3 units of time the probability that your expected event should have happened is greater than 95%. On a 5% confidence limit you can reject your hypothesis that events are following your expected model.

e.g. So if tubes are expected every 5mins on average (and assuming they arrive randomly!) then after 15mins we can reject this idea that they are arriving every 5mins… something has most probably happened to disrupt the service.

If you take tubes on this random line regularly then 63% of the time you would have boarded a tube after 5mins, and 86% of the time after 10mins.

Conversely: if you have been waiting for less than 0.0512933 units of time and an event happens then you might want to review ideas about the event happening every unit of time.

And if an event from an unknown distribution happens then you know the average unit of time is at least 1/0.0512933 = 19.5 times as long as you just waited.

In the case of the recent Russian plane crash over Sinai. It has happened a little over 1 month after starting operations in Syria. If the two events are lined then Russian plane crashes must happen no more than every 19.5 months.

In reality this model is overly simple as such events vary around a mean of the expected time. But as a crude rule of thumb 3 x the unit of time is a start.
 

         

The Second Mirror & Peace

 

The Mirror test is the test for self consciousness. Does an organism respond to its reflection the same as it responds to other organisms or is there a difference. This is the 1st Mirror. Non social animals will treat their reflection with territorial behaviour and escalate into violence as the reflection becomes more and more threatening. There is a paradigm shift where the organism grasps the reflection as self and stops the loop.

There is a second mirror however. Individual organisms can be trapped in escalating violence as each becomes more hostile to its opponent, who becomes more hostile as a result and justifies escalation. Normally escalation ends when one side judges itself to be likely to lose a conflict and the better option is submission. In the case where opponents are similarly matched conflict is the only conclusion hence the problem with the first mirror. Analogous to the 1st mirror there is a paradigm shift where the organism grasps the sense of “us” and doesn’t escalate conflict with other individuals.