Crooked Wisdom

You're walking down the street, it's night and of course it is one of the worst neighborhood of the city. A limping silhouette approaches you. An old alcoholic. Or a young drug addict, for what matters. For some of you, this is a nightmare. For others it's just week end. For two or three maybe it's simply Monday. Nobody is thinking that there is something to learn.

Oh yeah, that too many benders and this is where you end up.

Or that a human being is worth it, no matter how many banana skins on the top of the head.

Anyway: no, it's not this kind of learning.

The poor fella of this story (and this is a story, bear in mind), is hardly able to articulate a word. He's disconnected, there is no sense in his utterances. OK, his interior life could emerge fragmented and also his neuro-connections are trying to make (desperately) contact again with some configuration that were lost during New Year's Eve, 1991 (for the old guy). Reality is: the train of thoughts of the brother is simply going nowhere.

Now it's time for the lesson on stage. What do you see in front of you? A deranged consciousness, lost in the intricacies of his own convolutions. Thanks for him, he's facing a consciousness in order. The train of your chain of thoughts is on schedule, you know where are you going, right? Your mind is fully aware of his own presence to itself. No kidding: your consciousness is reflecting her own efficiency in being herself. Good. Now, I would say that the deranged fella is honest at least. In fact between the two is definitely the luckiest: because he is much, much closer to the TRUTH, to completely grasping the wisdom. 

 

So really you think that the configuration of your neuro-connections is your confident self and that is you? Let me understand: an organ of a biological being, say a liver or a brain, is producing a complicated pattern of (electro)procedures. This liver (or brain) is so sophisticated that in collaboration with other livers (or brains) has managed to establish an architecture of fictions where its body and the bodies associated with the other organs, livers (or brains) are living exploiting the augmented possibilities of those fictions. Now you are confidently thinking that you are someone. A liver! (or a brain, for that matters). Well done, my friend. I think that the brother fellow who drank himself, or that erase himself in his own circulatory system, he's probably more in the game than you.

One last thing: I'm not suggesting that you annihilate yourself with a liquid or a powder. I know we humans always love magic, but this is not the case. I'm just trying to give you a reason to be happy. A happy organ, one step closer to be perfectly centered in wisdom. Ah, I forgot to tell you: wisdom has been made to available for everyone. I mean not just you and your deranged friend (please don't eat the banana skin...). Even the asshole and the deliptuous. It's a party for everyone. You know why? It was meant to include also worms and cabbages, cockroaches and ivy. In other words no need of legs to reach wisdom: it's there! Feel happier? Hug the deranged, you wiser, miserable! Or adorable, for what matters...

One Man Gang of Minds or the Honorable society of minds How many brains does it take to make a mind?

Well, if you think that a mind is the brain, the answer is ONE. Now,it is fair and correct to assume that a mind is associated with one brain, in fact you have memories of things occured to a specific brain and you can move your hands, but not someone's else, though all these obvious confirmation of the thesis, well, there is something misleading in the One Man Gang theory about mind.

You observe a brain, you see is reacting like a mind, it's done. 

The problem is, you abstract the brain from its environment, but isolation is in the theory, not in reality. First thing, try to make a cognitive vacuum around your supposed One Man Gang. In linguistics, if you don't expose a child brain to a linguistic community during the time of a window of development (usually teenagehood), your subject will be severely impaired. In his mind. Another case: put a man in jail, alone, deprived of contacts, for many years. He will go mad, right? Oh yeah, you can bet. What happened? He's gone emotional. He has no friends. Be more specific: his brain lacks feedback, literally feeding from other minds: he's mentally starving.

OK, so we'll agree that to have a healthy mind, you need companionship. Good. But it's not enough.

Do you know how the brain itself works? The most recent model is of a parallel, distributed, decentralized system. It means that the brains is doing several times the same things, from different departments, without direct supervision. A good detail is the distribution: what does exactly mean different departments? 

Well, your brain is made of several, overlapping configurations of neurons. Further on it is possible to distinguish areas dedicated to work on specific tasks, like language, visual processing and so on. But most interestingly, the brain is operationally greedy. Yes my friend, the brain wants to process and he doesn't give a dime about how. Take calculations. Despite the limping metaphor of the brain like a computer, a normal biological human brain doesn't like too much computing. Why? I tell you why: it has been evolved to live in the savanna, jungle or mountains. He had to run, to aim, to manipulate tools, to express aggressivity, to conquest females, to strike deals and alliances, to gain control of a tribe and so on. In the wild, there is more action than numbers. So if by any chance you put an electronic calculator in front of a brain, he will use it merciless. Does it account as distribution? No? Yes? When you want to remember something, you write it down. Good. Your brain retrieves the information from the notepad. Or from a neuroconnection associated. Where is the difference? The skin. If you think that cognitive process are solely the ones occurring within the boundary of your skin, then you need give me stringent definition of how the brain delegates function within his boundaries and outside: how does it defragment the procedures?

If you like to live without boundaries, then you can enjoy the procedural liberalism of the brain. This is in a nutshell the extended mind thesis of Andy Clark.

If we have an extended, distributed mind, we are probably in good company. I mean, the restless delegation and negotiation of procedures by your brain is also an interminable communication with other brains. If you want to remember something, you can write it down or ask it to a friend. If you want to move the hands of someone else, you can always ask him. Trivial? Maybe, but who are you? You don't consider yourself a bio-circuit, but a curious human being, in search of adventures, following interests, instinct: you have aspirations, ambitions, you are deluded by many aspects of society, you are disillusioned by others, you hope for a better future, you love, you hate, you are someone, it's you. Now, all these things are done in negotiations with your peers, beloved, friends, parents, colleagues, neighbors, co-commuters, acquaintances, perfect strangers. Yes you learn what does it mean to be you, by a constant negotiation with the others. Your mind is the product of this negotiation amongst the many brain interconnected in your time space social region. Of course the brain associated with your identity has a lot of privileges, but not exclusively. You don't decide who you are entirely. And you don't decide what to think entirely. Many of your thought, many of the thinking paths of your mind are borrowed, stolen or granted from others. 

This is the honorable society of brains. So the answer is MANY.

Of course there are rumors that the society doesn't exist at all, but it is an invention of the foreign press to discredit the humans...

In this case the answer is: NONE...

The spectacular show of the Brain - In prose

If someone says that he never feared death, not even once, he would be a liar. There are a lot of reasons, but the most sound is that human consciousness is awareness of mortality. Heidegger was so convinced of that, he stated that man is being for death. You could say that what really defines mind is consciousness of being limited, that is, doomed to finish, to die, to go kaput.

The argument goes that self intelligence realizes the impermanence of everything and recognizes of being part of that everything. So, intelligence is a self realization of impermanence. And that's scary.

Because we are designed to look for pleasure and impermanence is not pleasant. We see everything that we can perceive as incomplete: it is nice, but impermanent. Sometimes we can make up this by ignoring impermanence or projecting indefinite permanence. In a word, we'd like the story to be continued. Somehow, at least. We seek fame, fortune, we hope our sons will do great, we keep telling stories, the story.

The big problem is that we are incapable of accepting a fragmented story. A story that goes nowhere. Bear in mind that a story can be unfinished. That's more than possible. An author that doesn't finish his novel, a young death, a sudden change of fortune on the verge of a big hit, ending with absolutely nothing. But in all cases, the story is unfinished, not incomplete. The difference? You can easily project a segment to the story, you can image how it could go on. It's because our self consciousness is a narrative intelligence. You probably don't pay attention to that, but we are distributing narratives all over the places. We spread narratives in our environment: we inseminate every meaning in our habitat as a piece of a story. And we love to see stories! We find that to be a story generator is great. We find corals very cute, but would like to swap your life with theirs??? Boring! We are dreaming of flying, because it's so amazing to fly over the places and ... would like to swap with a pigeon? Would you appreciate flight as much as if you were a pigeon?

Being human is super fun, because is intriguing, there is a lot going on, threats and promises and ways to change the plot. Most of all because we can reflect about it. We can laugh about it: human life can be so fun because we can have fun: we can superimpose irony on facts and that's really funny. Sense of humor is super fun. And it's a big shame everything has to go to the bin.

Our brain is so excited by the show is projecting to himself, that it doesn't want it to stop. Or better: the brain is so excited by the show that it is triggered to create a spectator for the show. The show is so great that the brain design an audience for it. And here it comes the mind. Because the mind can observe the show insofar it's the show. 

Of course when the mind realizes she's the show, she doesn't want it to finish, it's an addiction for narrativity. It is painful just to think that the show one day will end. So painful that the mind would consent to remain spectator of pure nothing, but still being. In fact this is immortality: to attend an endless show where plot and stories are becoming meaningless. Do you think you will pay attention to the intricacies of a man and woman relationship, after several millions of years? Why I say millions? Just after some hundreds years: the same stories all and all over again. 

The mind game is designed to make sense in one lifetime. Immortality is tasteless. You already have what it takes to be satisfied. You are the biggest show on earth. 

Congratulations!

Small small Wisdom

Image this situation, a joker god is stretching indefinitely your life (no immortality, but hardcore longevity), but is also making you sterile. You and everyone else. First reaction is: fine! I won't have kids, but who really wants them, when you'll have the future all for yourself! At the end of the day, having children is a substitute for desire of immortality; if I can have the real thing, who cares about the fake??? It's like methadone for heroin or pornography for sex. Yet, you'll discover that sex without eroticism is more like digestion than pleasure. And heroin without the craving burns the perception of satisfaction: you have everything you want, but you have paralyzed your will. Satisfaction is dissolving of desire, not its amputation.

So back to this diaperless world: when shit will come, you'll be powerless. I'll start from the most trivial thing. Economy, at least in the way we intend it, will collapse: our model is based on future growth, if you remove future and growth, you cancel every motivation for economic prosper, even if greed and selfishness are totally there. Individually, you may still want more, but the collectivity surrounding you will lose interest in a game without prestige: nobody wants to win the final world cup, or become the last pope. Suddenly you'll realize that human prosperity is psychologically ingrained in handing down that prosperity to the next generation. In the absolute absence of a next generation, well, you'll see the real face of money: a future promise. Without tomorrow, money is a lie.

That world starts to look ugly? I've just started....

When you have children (you or your brother, or your friends, or anybody else on the same planet for that matters), you have to train them. A human brain doesn't come fully equipped with concepts and ideas. Actually it doesn't come with a mind either. The learning process is structuring a mind around the child brain. For the purpose of this experiment, it really doesn't count if you train your baby to become an angel or an asshole: teaching is what is important. Teach him to become a vulture, if you like, but teach him!

Now the funny thing is that we understand the concepts and the meaning we already master through teaching, through the process of handing down them.

Say I'm the most knowledgeable person in the world, well, knowledge is a commodity that cannot be stored. At least for human brains. If you have the wisdom, if you know the answer, you can't put in the cave and seal it: you'll forget it. There is no place in your brain where meanings and ideas are actually codified. You don't nail concepts in your gray matter. Concepts are an acting process: they flow in the act of representation. You represent your mind and along with her, you carry on the attached concepts. If you are the most knowledgeable person, you need to act as such. And there is only one way to impersonate wisdom: in the teaching theater. So without a disciple, there cannot be any master. Thus in a world without children, wisdom is doomed to dissipate in games more and more meaningless.

Wisdom takes its positive meaning from the negative emptiness surrounding it. The written black words become visible by the surrounding white emptiness. Remove the answer of the silence to your words and language become a monolithic block of noise. So the master is taking the meaning of his wisdom by handing down it to the disciple.

This is the full life of meanings: that you grasp them when you let them go (to someone else). You think of knowing what your words say? Try yourself with a child. What does it mean to live? And to die? He's struggling on the surface, whilst you are rooted deeply. But: does your depth really sweep away his superficiality or your wisdom actually aligns with his ignorance (recalling forgetfulness?) ? The living spring of meanings, comes from describing experience for the first time. You had your first time ages ago, to regain your linguistic attachment to reality and its relative virginity, you need to teach words to someone who is making that first experience.

Otherwise your meanings are just words of words.

P.S.: Of course in the process of learning from teaching, you really understand the emptiness of wisdom. From the dawn of mind, you realize that the full noon of your wisdom is nothing but a fading light. Enjoy the bright light of the morning of wisdom, because it is easier to learn the inconsistence of knowledge. Wisdom really is a small thing.

Say a little prayer for the generation of your self-consciousness

Every little gesture you make, disseminates cognitive infrastructuration in the world. We rarely explore intentionally new circuits of the world; and the few new things that are experimented in a day, are vastly overwhelmed by myriads of usual patterns. The way you walk, talk, the small tics, the journey home. Habits root our worldly cognitive being there in the world or if you like the generative production of substantives, our situatedness.

Every gesture is a reminder of our being situated in an environment. If you think that we are a closed system, an entity that can be placed on a shelf or in a storage like a tin, without significant modification, then rephrase it. Quick. What we call “environment” is the world which is familiar to our cognitive system. We are here. I mean we are even more “in” than a fish in a pond. Our mind is not a small dwarf seated behind your eyes. Our mind is the room we walk through, is the body seated in the chair, as well as the perception of objects, light and sounds coming in: we are in the environment.

When you scratch your head, you are re-enforcing the conviction of our brain. We have a very flexible set of movements, we can bend and assume enormous numbers of postures, we can learn to move our bodies in novel ways. This is pretty amazing. Very few animals are so open to new bodily configurations. Every organism is endowed with set of movements to carry out specific tasks in his environment. On the human side instead, we can twist and bend for purposes we invented, like dance, yoga, gymnastic, bondage, etc. etc. Every move is the trail to design a cognitive organization. Follow the pattern and you'll start to represent the establishment of a cognitive pattern. The way you move is yourself. Every little habit concurs to generate the cognitive representation of your brain, the self consciousness of being there.

Every gesture is a little prayer to believe in the awareness of being there. The benign demon that your brain calls “I”, is the bodily navigation in the familiar environment.

Oh my god, I started again to talk like Heraclitus. We must share the same vices. I want to cry. Of joy (but I'm less worried than Heraclitus).

Gazing Eternity from a Momentary Porthole The ridiculous mortality in human aspirations

How long does it last eternity? Well, a lot. Finally you'll have time to do everything. Finally the sardonic grin of death won't be able to laugh at you. Finally you'll be happy. Right? Well, apart from the fact your jellyfish brain has been washed away long ago, a bunch of monkeys is having breakfast with your high cognitive functions and a dysfunctional family of pagurus bernhardus has been relocated in your skull by a housing project, yes, you smartly understood the essence of temporality.

It's better to admit it: we human beings have a problem with mortality. Especially in the Western we completely forgot the meaning of dying. We spend our life, day to day, doing something else pretending we have time, only to realize we are running out of it. It reminds me of the story about oil, that we are consuming like jerks, only to realize it is finished. Guys, honestly I think that we as a race have done something remarkable, but we are really out of touch we it comes to consumerism.

Anyway, back to temporality. How long is eternity? I mean, a lot of dudes are really convinced that after you're smashed by a truck and your internal organs are a soft jam, you open again your eyes and you live forever. Ok, let's talk about this forever. Do you think that you wake up, have a coffee (or maybe a pint of sulfuric acid if you are in hell), and start to hang up with our mate? (well of course to hang out in hell is slightly different) And do you think you'll do this forever? I mean forever WITHIN a temporal duration, it is a hell of period.

It does sound a bit childish: Ok I have a body and a day to day life and forever is simply the extension of this condition till, well , as the word says, “forever”.

Apart the most trivial cognitive and psychological objections: I.e. after one million years you are so fed up with your neighbours that your enternal activity is actually to kille them. But most of all you are bored to death by yourself: you'll start to forget things about you, precisely to avoid the unbearable presence of that bloody idiot it is your consciousness after one million years. In fact I presume we will pretend to be geranium flowers. Our cognitive system cannot be entertained healthily for such a long period of time.

But the real problem is that eternity is not even close to this. Eternity is a concept to discipline your consciousness and to liberate her. Precisely: your consciousness is embodied to a physical entity with a limited temporal span. When you are talking of eternity you are liberating the attachment of your consciousness. Be careful not to liberate the embodiment: typical mistake. Without your body, your consciousness is an hallucination: if you take away your body, what do you think it will stay? Your credit record???

So liberation from attachment. The biggest attachment is to time. Temporality is our definition of being focused on yourselves. So it is quite refreshing to entertain yourself in a detached attitude. And bang, here we are. Eternity.

Yes guys, eternity is timeless, not full of time. The universe is bloody old, not eternal. There is no eternity in physics (that we can make sense of). Eternity is just in consciousness. And guess how long does it last?

Take a seat.

The closest example of lack of duration our cognitive system can picture is: the instant!

All right, now stop behaving like an hysteric 20^th century woman who has just knew about Freudian theories and doesn't understand she's actually realizing the theory by her own acting. Calm down. Don't be angry with me, but with the lack of appropriate theological depth in your business administration studies.

We make experience of the lack of duration in very short periods of time. It's not a coincidence that Mohammed trip in heaven lasts only a second. Even a catholic theologists, Ulrich Von Balthasar describe heaven and hell as the projection of your inner spirituality in day to day life: don't hold your breath to see if you fall in the lines of the morons Halloweenianly dressed as angels or devils. It is here. What is your eternity? Let's go backward. Think at the instant of your death. That's a good example: the moment you pass away, that is a big moment and it's not that long. So when it will come, enjoy it. But in general, everytime you concedes your consciousness the time of being out of time, you can enjoy the lack of duration.

Good if you take time to observe the moon/ sunrise/ your sleeping beloved. Perfect, a bit chewed Mac poetry, but it's a beginning.

An instant is an instant. On the tube when you see the sliding doors closing on your station, when you drink the very first sip of alcohol of the day, when you throw pasta in the boiling water, every one of this is an experience of instantaneous duration. It's not joy or sadness per se. But if you start to learn how catch the instant without reasons, then you are closer to live on the edge of eternity. And God bless the last drag of cigarette. Oh damn, I've quit. Hell.

The Birth of Consciousness from the Spirit of Representation

The mark of consciousness is its own being there.

I'm here and only here, I'm the unique focus of awareness of my very presence. I can think that I could be someone else, like someone else. But I'm myself. There are reasons for that. Self consciousness is the deploy of awareness of being there. It's an act of representation. The cognitive activity of self monitoring in the process of representing that very activity, generates the observable by the means of the activity. We observe a phenomenon created by observation. But how could such observation start before the creation of the phenomenon itself??

It's easy. Your mind is the acceleration of the brain you are associated with. The developmental environment,in which you have been raised, infrastructured your mind and little by little your brain acted more and more like a mind. Pieces of representation, dates, places, characters.

They told you stories, they told of princesses and dragons, of Homer, they told you that people traveled to the moon, they told you that the moon is very big and very far. They told you a lot of things. Many screwed their brain to verify the truth of what has been told. But truth is within the horizon opened by the stories. It's like the big bang: law of physics start at a certain point after the beginning. So truth came after the horizon of awareness have been born. And you need to build the horizon, you need the scaffolding of stories to drag out a mind from the brain.

When the stream of narrations accelerate the brain in to a mind, here we are, awareness of being there appears. Self consciousness wakes up and truth and fiction can make sense. When your brain becomes capable of narrations, when it's finally able to tell the story of its consciousness, then we have the observer of the representation. We are the sons of our own representation, through the belief in our narrations.

A child is believed to be a consciousness, everyone tells him that he is a consciousness. Little by little the small man acts his own representation. And when enough narrative can be deployed in front, then the sense of a consciousness can be traced back down the representation.