Category Archives: Model of the World

Location, Location, Location

The Juggler

The other day I saw an interesting show. Downtown, they have this park where there’s a section that is blocked off for street performers. I’m no sure how they decide who gets to perform where, and when, but they do have some sort of system in place. It’s not like some areas where there’s a prime street location, and the performers have to fight for the spot.

Sometimes you can find videos online of street performers actually getting into fistfights over a particular piece of real estate. If you make your living as a street artist, which many of them, it can cost you your livelihood if you let your competitor get in and take your spot.

Back in the days of the gold rush, there were certain rules regarding “claims.” If you made a claim on a certain area, then you were the only one that was allowed to find gold in that area. It wasn’t really enforced all the much, more like a general agreement among the gold diggers themselves. If one particular person would “jump claims” too much, then either the authorities, or the general population would self correct, effectively eliminating the “claim jumper.”

Territorial disputes have always been a key reason for countries going to war, as far back as recorded history. Resources, which are always scarce and in limited supply are worth fighting and dying for. It’s no secret that countries, even today, that have valuable resources such as gold and precious metals are much better off than countries that don’t have any resources at all.

Much has been written about the struggle for control over resources on a smaller scale during the middle ages. For a while, the de facto means for keeping property was to keep it in the family. The term “real” in “real estate” itself is a version of the word royal, meaning of course royalty. Real estate means land that is owned by the king, or the ruling family. In the middle ages, all of the land was owned by the rich people, and the peasants had to pay heavy taxes in order to be able to farm the land to eek out a meager living.

There was quite an interesting battle that slowly took place over several generations with regard to this. Generally speaking, the eldest son would inherit the land, and subsequent resources (which included all the people.) The second and third oldest sons usually didn’t get much of anything, unless they were in the good graces of their oldest brother. The daughters were hopefully married off into a rich family.

In poor family, then, daughters were much more valuable than sons, as they at least had the potential to “marry up” into a rich family. But in rich families, eldest sons were the focus of attention.

But over the course of time, some interesting things took place. As Ridley points out in “The Red Queen,” the second sons had two choices. They could accept their fate, and hope they stayed in favor with their older brothers, or they could join the monastery. After a few generations of this, these unimportant, younger brothers became the leaders of the then very powerful Roman Catholic Church. And what did the Church regulate most? Sex, and marriage, the very thing that kept them from inheriting the valuable land and resources.

Pretty soon there were religious laws which forbid marrying of cousins, which were generally favorable to wealthy families as it kept the land and resources intact in the family line. As things slowly changed over time, and with the Church inventing new ways to keep wealthy families from staying wealthy, the church itself became a formidable force.

The late middle ages, whole countries feared the Pope, the new King of Kings, as he could excommunicate entire countries with one decision. These unimportant younger brothers had slowly transformed the Catholic Church into one of the most powerful entities the world had ever seen. All by subtly changing the way that land and resources were kept and distributed.

There have been many studies of animals that indicate mating behaviors are extremely dependent on the male being able to adequately defend its territory. Study after study shows that in many species, whether they be insects or gorillas, the males that can hold and maintain physical territory get all the girls, while those that can’t are cast out, banned, with little chance of ever reproducing.

Being able to hold and defend a small piece of dirt is no insignificant thing. To this very day, thousands die day in and day out to defend pieces of land.

Which is exactly why the city set up a lottery system to see who got that particular spot in the street performer zone. I guess they had the performers pass some kind of test, or provide some kind of reference to quality, then they divided up the times and the spaces by lottery. I suppose that is a good way to do it. I think they are working one some kind of a feedback system where the performers that generate the most crowds are given preference, while those that are less “entertaining” are given the least popular times and places.

But the juggler that I saw was the most amazing juggler I’d ever seen, either in person or on TV. He had this completely spellbinding routine, where he would start juggling things, and then start talking to whoever was nearest to him. Then he would take whatever objects that person was willing to give up, like a cell phone or a set of car keys, and start jugging them, all the while telling this long winded and mysterious metaphorical story about all these tangents that didn’t seem to have anything to do with anything else, except for what maybe came before this.

But the stories always incorporated elements of whatever he happened to be juggling at the time, whatever these things are.

Spin Cycle

Round And Round She Goes…

I remember once a long time ago, there was this traveling carnival that came and set up in neighborhood. It was around some holiday, I think Halloween. They set up in a parking lot. It was an ordinary traveling carnival, with rides, and food booths and games. There was this one ride in particular that I remember, because my friend managed to get sick while were on it. It kind of looked like big double edge hammer, and each car, which was on each end of the spinning hammer, would spin. So you could spin from two different frames of reference. One large loop around and around, like on a Ferris wheel, but your individual car would spin around on it’s own axis as you spun around. That’s when it happened.

I remember way back in college when we were studying the rotation of the earth. There are quite a few rotations within rotations when you break it down. Our solar system itself is inside of a particular galaxy, which itself is spinning around the universe. Then within our own galaxy, all the stars are spinning around in a cycle. And we, of course, are on earth, which is circling the sun. And of course we have night and day, so the earth itself is spinning on it’s own axis. Right there you have four different things spinning around

What makes it even more confusing is something called precession. If you look at the earth, and imagine each pole sticking up and down, the tips of each pole would draw an imaginary circle as the earth spins around its axis. It takes the earth about 26,000 years to move through one cycle. If you can imagine a spinning top that is holding steady, but the axis moves in a slow circle as it spins, that’s kind of what’s going on. So already we’ve got five different things that are spinning from the earth’s perspective.

The interesting thing about the precession of the earth is that if you take the 26,000 years, and divide by 12, you get about 2100 years give or take. This is exactly as long as each astrological “age” is. As then earth processes around its axis, every 2100 years or so it moves into a different “house,” according to astrology.

If you can imagine the earth as a spinning top, and the axis slowly (in the earth’s case 26,000 years) making a circle, the axis will slowly “point” towards the constellation that represents each astrological symbol.

Many believe that much of the symobology from the bible, as well as the stories that it was based on stems from this precession. The earth’s axis makes a 26,000-year rotation, and each “age” is when the earth’s precessional axis is pointing towards a particular constellation, representative of a particular astrological sign. Currently, we are in the “age” of Pisces. This started around the same time as the birth of Jesus, and many believe this is where the “Jesus fish” idea comes from (Pisces = fish). Before Pisces, was the age of the bull. This is behind the symbolic smashing of the bull, or the golden calf, when Moses came down with the ten commandments, and found his followers busy worshipping a golden calf. The coming “age of Aquarius” or water, is going to be around 2040. Who knows what will happen then. Maybe lots of rain or maybe Al Gore really was right, and the ice caps will melt and we’ll all have to watch “Waterworld” with Kevin Costner and learn how to survive on ships.

Of course, all these stories and mythologies were developed long before they had any accurate means of measuring, or even understand the mechanics behind celestial movements of planets, stars and galaxies. They just knew that different stars, (whatever they were) seemed to appear in different shapes, and slowly move across the sky. You can imagine primitive man coming up with all kinds of fascinating mythological stories to explain it all.

The biggest reason my friend got sick on that insane spinning was because he ate a chilidog, a really big chilidog, right before we got on the ride. And when he got sick, he really got sick. I feel bad for the poor guy or girl that on into our cart after the ride finally came to a halt.

So if you have a chance, or care enough to remember, next time you watch a sunrise, or a sunset, remember that there’s a whole lot of spinning going on out there.

The Lady On The Stairs

Watch Your Step

This morning, as I was out on my normal morning, pre dawn walk, I witness a potentially devastating event. Just as I was walking past this apartment complex, an older middle-aged woman had just begun to start walking down the stairs. In both hands were bags that were overflowing with stuff. Just then, she tripped, and fell rather quickly straight onto her face, causing her head to twist at a strange angle. Because her hands were full, she couldn’t do anything to protect her self. As soon as her body slammed face first half way down the stairs, her momentum kept her turning as did another flip, landing on her back at the bottom of the stairs.

I remember a few years ago I used to be big into cycling. I had a mountain bike with slick tires. I got a mountain bike because there were quite a few extremely steep hills in my neighborhood, and I quite enjoyed riding up and down hills. With a regular road bike, the gear ratio wouldn’t have been enough to tackle some of the steepest hills.

I had been riding a hundred miles a week or so when I decided to add some extra components to my bike. The one I bought hadn’t been anywhere close to a top of the line model. More like a weekend hacker model. I bought some handle bar extensions, and some toe clips for the pedals. The handle bar extensions and the toe clips were for when I rode long, flat distances on the weekends. Usually to the beach and back.

So I got my toe clips, and went home to put them on. I read the instructions, which warned very severely of the dangers of not knowing how to get out of them in a hurry. I rode in a couple of circles taking them on and off. There was a special twisting motion you had to do. You had to kind of push down and twist out. At first it took a while, but with practice you can get out relatively quickly. I hadn’t got that far yet.

So I went off riding. It was about 6 pm on a weekday. Heavy traffic of people driving home from work. I decided to ride on one of my many hill routes. So I started off, and came to this really long hill. Just at the top, where it flattens out before going downhill, there is a big intersection. There are two lanes dedicated to turning right, and there isn’t a bike lane or a sidewalk. So if you are on a bicycle, and you want to go straight, you have to position yourself between the two rows of cars turning right, and the three rows of cars going straight.

Here’s the funny part. As I came to the top of the hill, I wasn’t going nearly fast enough to coast to a stop. As soon I stopped pedaling, my momentum would quickly die. Just as I stopped pedaling, I remembered I had my toe clips, but unfortunately, I didn’t remember until it was too late. Just as I tried to remember how to get out of them, I fell crashing to the ground.

BAM!

What was interesting was, despite, the surprise, shock, and mild pain, the first thought to enter my mind was “I hope nobody saw that.” When I disconnected my feet from the pedals, I grabbed the stuff that had fallen out of my pocket, and stood back up. I briefly checked to see if I was bleeding, then I did my best to pretend that nothing happened. I didn’t want to look at anybody in the many cars around me, because I was sure my ego wouldn’t be able take it if somebody was laughing at me (just as I would likely be laughing at somebody in my own predicament). So anyway, I rode off, making sure to practice getting in and out of my pedal at every opportunity. I got pretty good at it, even though I fell over once more a couple days later. Luckily, there was nobody around.

I also remember a couple years ago I was running on a playground with some kids. I ran too fast for my own good, and suddenly felt an extremely sharp explosion of pain in my right hamstring, causing me to immediately collapse into a heap on the ground, screaming in pain. I remember then a completely different thought entered into my brain. I didn’t care if anybody saw me, I didn’t care if anybody was laughing at me, I didn’t care if I bothered anybody with my screaming. All I knew was that I was in pain, and I wasn’t going to do a goddamn thing until the pain went away. I would have lain their screaming until somebody called an ambulance if that’s what it took.

Luckily, however, with a few moments the pain subsided enough for me to stand on my own, and limp rather painfully to bench where I could sit down. As it turned out, I only pulled it; I didn’t rip it or anything. I just had to limp around for a couple of days.

Two different accidents, and two completely different automatic thoughts. One to protect the ego, and one to protect the physical body.

So when I saw the poor woman finally come to a seemingly painful halt at the bottom of the stairs, my first thought was how I was going to get an ambulance. I didn’t have a cell phone, and it was still dark, so there weren’t very many people around. Just as I was considering that, she brought her self up to a sitting position, and rubbed her hands over her face, looking at them, apparently checking for blood. No blood. I went over an asked her if she was OK, and she said she was, in a kind of a tone that made it seem like she was brushing me off. Then after another check for blood, she grabbed her things and started putting them back into her bag. I tried to tell her to rest for a bit, just to make sure she was OK, but she insisted she was. After she collected her stuff, she went to her bike a rode off to what I assume is her job.

At first, I admit, I was a little miffed that she didn’t thank me at all for coming to her aid, (even though I didn’t do anything) until I realized this was clearly the first kind of accident, where the first thought is to hope that nobody saw you, in order to protect your ego. Which is obviously much better than screaming for an ambulance.

As I continued on with my walk this morning, I thought how that is a pretty good example of many unconscious strategies that humans have developed over the years. In this particular case, the strategy seems to be:

Category One

Accident –> Check for damage –> Collect your stuff –> Keep going.

Or, in my playground example

Category Two

Accident –> Scream bloody murder until help arrives, or until accident is downgraded to category one.

Not a bad way to get out of trouble rather quickly.

What Is The Best Strategy?

Tit For Tat? Or Screw Your Buddy?

The other day I was riding my bike downtown, not going anywhere in particular. The weather was particularly nice, so I was just riding around. I had brought a couple of books in case I found a decent place to hang out. There wasn’t anything good playing at the movies, so I wasn’t in any hurry to be anywhere at any specific time.

I found this really strange bookstore. I hadn’t noticed it before. There were all these stacks of books that looked like they weren’t in any discernable order. Just slightly more organized than random. Like they just unloaded them from the used book truck and put them in stacks wherever there was space.

I went inside and started looking around. A sort of pattern emerged. The non-fiction books were over there, and the novels were up here in the front. And in the non fiction section, the how to books were kind of off to the side, the general non fiction books, like books about sociology, and the history and evolution of the sewing machine, and books about baseball were over there. And then the used textbooks were kind of off to the side next to up there.

As I started poking around, I was astounded by how cheap these books were. This one for twenty-five cents. That one for a dollar. The most expensive book I found was one titled “Step-by-Step Guide to Alchemy: How To Turn Any Object Into Pure Gold,” was three dollars. I turns out that it was a textbook that was used over at the university in an undergraduate course in metaphysics. I would have bought it, being able to turn anything into gold would seem to be quite a handy skill to have, but it was a really huge book, and even if it did fit into my backpack, there was no way I was going to haul this thing around the rest of the day.

So I continued to look, and I find this book about computer simulated game theory. It was written back in the seventies, and was about different programs that were developed to play a game called “The Prisoners Dilemma.” This is a classic puzzle from game theory. Here’s how it goes:

You have to people. Each has two cards. One card says “altruism,” the other card says “selfish.” Each player chooses which card to play. There are two players per game. If both players play the “altruism” card, they each get 500 points. If one player plays the “selfish card” and the other player plays the “altruism card” the selfish card player gets 900 points, while the altruism player gets nothing. If they both play the “selfish” card, each is penalized 100 points.

The game is called “prisoners dilemma” because if you have to supposed criminals, in separate rooms, they basically have the same choice. If they both claim innocence, the cops got nothing. If one guy rats out his buddy, while his buddy claims innocence, the first guy goes free (or gets a special deal) while his buddy is sent up the river. If they both rat out each other, then they both get penalized. This of course assumes that they both got caught unexpectedly, and didn’t have time beforehand to strategize.

So what they did, back in the seventies, was they had this round robin tournament. They invited whoever wanted to play to come up with a strategy that they thought would work best. Each player would play every other player (all computer simulated) and they would see who had the most points at the end. They would play a certain number of rounds per player, and then switch.

What they were most interested is what kind of strategy would work best, in the long run, with many different opponents. A selfish strategy, or an altruistic one.
I believe there is a game show in the UK that follows these same rules, but I don’t think it is as statistically relevant as this computer simulated tournament.

So which strategy do you think won? Selfish or altruistic? Which is better, look out for number one, or screw the other guy as often as possible?

The strategy that won, hands down, every single time, was a strategy called “tit for tat.” This strategy simply copied the last play made by your opponent. So if you met up with an opponent that played the altruism card last time, you’d play the altruism card in the current round. The reason this worked was that all the strategies that were based more on altruism, whenever they met a similar based strategy, they would quickly rack up points, as they would both play the altruism card most of the time. The tit for tat would just copy what it’s opponent did the last play, so it would play the altruism card most of the time with an altruistic opponent.

When the tit for tat strategy came up with a purely selfish opponent, neither of them would get any points, because the tit for tat would always copy the previous move of it’s opponent, which was always selfish.

The points accrued by two altruistic strategies when they met each other far out weighted the points lost when an altruistic strategy met a selfish strategy. Needless to say, whenever a selfish strategy met another selfish strategy, they didn’t get any points.

This computer simulated tournament was originally designed by evolutionists who wanted to see how altruistic strategies spring up in nature by organisms that are primarily selfish in nature. Like honey bees pollinating flowers in exchange for nectar, and monkeys that groom each other for no apparent reason. Somewhere, somehow, there is a payoff. And based on the computer simulation, you seem to get the most pay off with a “help the other guy out” mentality. While you might run into a few selfish people, you’ll more than make it up when you run into another like-minded “help the other guy out” strategist.

So anyway, I picked up that little book, which only cost fifty cents, and fit snugly into my backpack, and went pedaling off down the street, wondering what I would stumble upon next.

How Long Can You Hold It?

Eye to Eye

I went to see this movie the other night. I didn’t even realize it was coming out. I was just walking down the arcade downtown, and I saw a movie poster. I recognized the actor right away, but I had no idea he had a movie coming out. So naturally, I went and checked the times, so I could come back and see it within the next couple of days. It was already pretty late, and there weren’t any more shows that evening.

So the next day come around and I go down to see this movie. While I was waiting in line, I saw somebody that I sort of recognized, but wasn’t sure where I knew her from. I could tell she felt he same way. We were waiting in one of those lines that snakes around, kind of like an amusement park. You are always standing next to different people as the line moves around.

So we had just turned our opposite corners, and started moving closer to each other. This was really weird, because both of us were trying to study each other, but only through our respective peripheral visions. I was kind of afraid that if our eyes, met and she showed recognition for who I was, and I hadn’t figured out who she was yet, it would be embarrassing. I suspect that she was doing the same thing.

It’s kind of hard to describe. We were both looking kind of in each other’s direction, but not quite at each other. But we kept moving closer and closer to each other. I started to panic, what if she said my name, but I didn’t know hers? What if she knew who I was, and I ignored her, but then saw her again the next day somewhere, like at the cleaners, or some place I shop every day?

I remember once when I was in college, I was taking this class in anthropology. It was cool because of the class; we got in free to the local zoo anytime we wanted. All we had to do was show our student ID, and mention the professor’s name. And the zoo wasn’t any small town zoo with a bunch of animals that were kicked out of other zoos for bad behavior. This was actually a world-renowned zoo, with high profile animals like special pandas and stuff.

So anyway, one lecture, this professor was telling us how intricate the facial expressions of chimpanzees are. And also how similar they are to humans. He was explaining that the human tendency to smile is somehow related, to chimps baring of their teeth to both show aggression, and to show passive submission. I don’t remember exactly how it works, but the facial expressions, at least in chimps, for aggression are only slightly different from happy submission.

He told us if we wanted to have some fun with the chimps, to get as close as we can to the cage possible, and pick one, and just stare at it. After a while he or she will realize that some goofball human is staring at it, and see what’s up. After a while, they will take it as a sign of aggression, and start staring back. If you are lucky, you can get into a staring contest with a chimp. If that happens, wait a few minutes of staring, and then bare your teeth. The chimp will most likely get super angry and jump around like he wants to kill you or something.

So after I heard that, I went straight to the zoo, and went right to the chimps. I found a couple and stared at them, but I couldn’t get anybody to stare back. I tired for a while, and did get a bunch of glances, but no takers for a deadly stare down contest. Maybe they weren’t in the mood, or maybe somebody tipped them off that the professor of anthropology was sending troublemakers to mess with them.

When I reported my findings, he said that’s not unusual. Chimps have to be ready to stare somebody down, and there are plenty of factors that go into it. Generally speaking, if they don’t feel like they are in competition for anything, like food or girl chimps or something, they won’t likely get angry very easily. I guess in the zoo they try to keep the chimps happy.

But he went on to explain that eye contact is a touch thing. Even human it evokes some deeply subconscious and long evolved fears of conflict. In the wild, eye contact meant one thing, and one thing only:

Let’s rumble.

He also mentioned some psychological study that showed if two humans are looking at each other eye to eye for more than thirty seconds, they are either fighting, or thinking about fighting, (or at the very least feeling some kind of aggressive competition), or the opposite either engaged in sex, thinking about sex, or at the very least having sexual feelings.

I’ve read from other sources, that if a guy locks eyes with a woman, and she holds eye contact for more than a few seconds, she is a highly sexual individual. I’m not sure if that’s true or not, but if you’re a guy, try and see if you can hold eye contact with a female stranger for more than a few seconds. It can be interesting, to say the least.

And this is the weird part, or the cool part. Just as moved up so we were both next to each other line, we both did our best to shift our gazes so we were looking at each other, and throw our best “Oh, hey! How’s it going,” but right when we did so, we both realized who each other was at the same time. It turned out to be more like “Oh Hey! (fake) how’s it…OH! Hey! (real) How’s it going!” Turns out we don’t know each other by name, just that she’ s a waitress at a coffee shop that I go to sometimes.

Once we got that out of the way, I was able to enjoy the movie. Which turned out to be pretty good.

日　月　火　水　木　金　土

Cycles

Sun

Moon

Fire

Water

Tree

Metal

Earth

These are the seven Chinese characters used to depict the days of week, starting from Sunday. I find it interesting that the character for Sunday in Chinese, and the root word for Sunday in English both mean “The Sun.” Likewise for Monday, (moon day) and “The Moon.” After that I’m not sure. I never cease to be amazed by the various naturally occurring elements in nature, which appear in various cultures.

For example there are ancient traditions in both Eastern and Western belief systems and mythologies surround giant evil reptiles that pose a danger to humans. In European mythology, these “dragons” appear as giant fire breathing lizards. In Eastern mythology, the dragons look more like snakes, sometimes with legs, sometimes not. That they are both reptiles is interesting.

I suppose that ancient man discovered that some reptiles, such as snakes and certain lizards, were much more dangerous than their size and speed would indicate. I can see how primitive man would somehow imagine them to have evil, supernatural powers that would fill stories for generations. From that standpoint, it’s no mystery that both cultures, separated by huge oceans and continents, turned out to be the same basic bad guy in various mythological stories.

Another interesting similarity is the number twelve. Western astrology has twelve different zodiac signs, as does Eastern astrology. It’s no coincidence that if you count the number of full moons in a year’s time, you’ll usually end up with twelve.

There are, of course, several different theories as to why there are so many things in common that cross cultural boundaries. Christians will tell you it is because we all come from Adam and Eve. Jungian philosophers will tell you its’ because we are connected by a massive unconscious, or superconscious brain that feeds our dreams with the same archetypes.

However, there are those that suggest the answer lies in the fact that we all share similar experiences, regardless with what culture we come from, what era we live in, and what language we speak or what god we worship.

For example, the universal signal for no is a shake of the head. Back and forth. No. Every culture, same motion. Even in cultures that have done their best to avoid contact with “civilized” society, they share the same headshake for no.

Why is this? Is it programmed in our genes? The best answer I’ve heard says yes, but from a completely indirect reason. There is no gene that says shake your for no. But there are genes that build our muscles and the shapes of our head and the rate of our growth as children. And our limited body size and control of our muscles lead us to our first ever “no” motion. And because that first ever “no” fulfills it’s purpose, that is the thing we say “no” to stops, we learn right away an effective strategy that works. What is the situation?

We are breastfeeding, and we get full. We think (obviously without words, since we’re about a couple hours old at most) “I’m full. No more. Stop. No.” And the only physical movement we are capable of doing is to turn our heads to the side.

The very first gesture we learn, strictly by trial and error, is how to say “no.”

It’s easy to see then, how every human learns this simple gesture. As far as nodding our head for yes, I’m not sure how that works, but it might have something to do with tilting out heads back and opening our mouths.

Here in Japan it’s a tradition to get up and watch the sunrise on New Years Day. A new beginning. A fresh start. Set the scorecards to zero. One more trip around the sun.

Something to think about as you look at your calendars, and see 1/1/10. When you realize that all around the world people are looking at the same calendars, with the same numbers, and feeling the same thoughts. Another year. Another shot at getting what we want, and getting rid of what we don’t want.

Another trip around the sun on this big ball of dirt filled with people chasing after their dreams. Another year filled with cycles of the moon, the sun, the seasons, and the weather. Another year filled with countless opportunities waiting for you to pounce and make them yours.

Have fun.

Ever Expanding File Cabinets and Brain Flexibility

Stretch Your Mind

I met a friend for lunch the other day. Not really a planned thing, we had bumped into each other a couple days earlier and had made tentative plans on the spot. Kind of like “I’m gonna be here, at this time,” kind of thing. So anyway, he was telling me about this neighbor of his who recently moved in next door. Kind of a weird guy, but not in a bad way. Sometimes when you get a new neighbor, especially in a small apartment complex where you know you are going to run into this person on a regular basis, it can be a little interesting at first. Everybody wants to see who the new guy is.

It’s kind of like when you start a new semester at school. You have a whole bunch of new classes, and you aren’t sure what your classmates will be like, or any of your teachers. And you know that the first week of school you usually don’t do much anyway, so there aren’t any worries there. So you are pretty much free to let your curiosity roam and imagine some possible futures. Of course, that usually only last a couple of days, until you realize that it’s just another set of classmates, and another teacher.

Of course, sometimes you get lucky and sit next to a really cute girl or guy, or your teacher is particularly entertaining, somebody that actually enjoys their job. But more often than not it’s simply a matter of getting to know new people that turn out to be pretty similar to the old people.

So anyway this guy was into all kinds of exotic artwork from various different countries. He had traveled quite a bit and collected little pieces from here and there. When my friend saw him moving into his apartment, he couldn’t figure out exactly what the guy was all about. He saw him carrying in these different carvings and stuff, and had to come up with a story of what the reason was behind him. Maybe he was into voodoo, or maybe he was a professor. Every time the guy would go downstairs to his moving van, he’d bring up another box of stuff. And my friend couldn’t help but watch the whole time. His moving van was parked underneath his window, and when he walked to his apartment, he had to pass his big front window.

I was reading this book once on hypnosis. It was a hard book to read, or at least to pay attention to. It was written to give an objective overview of hypnosis and what it was, but the author also wanted to give the reader a subjective experience of what if felt like to feel the first hand effects of hypnosis. But he did it in an odd sort of way. He would be writing about some clinical aspect of hypnosis, then he would switch right into to a firsthand experience of it. What made it so interesting was that he never let the reader know when he was switching. So you’d be reading this, following along, and all of a sudden you would stop and wonder exactly what this was, and where this was going. Like you are sitting there, trying to remember what it was you were reading before you got to this part, and although you thought there was some sort of connection, you aren’t exactly sure what it is, now, reading this. But because it’s easy to find things like that interesting, you just keep on reading.

He was saying that when the mind looks at something that is unfamiliar, it is much easier to put it into a category that already exists. Some experts believe that there is a discreet time in a person’s life, when the categories aren’t completely labeled yet. This is up to about 7 years old. Not that we can’t create new categories after the age of seven, but around that time, the brain switches into “put it into it’s appropriate category” mode from “make a new category mode,” which can make for some interesting hallucinations, like my friend experienced when seeing this guy bringing all those weird things into his apartment.

The fun stuff happens when the brain finds a couple of possible categories, but there is nothing else that suggests what category to put something in. If you’ve ever had the experience of eating or drinking something, and getting one thing while you are expecting something else, you can understand this. Like if you grabbed what you thought was a bottle of ice water, and it turned out to be seven up, there’s be a brief pause while the brain figured out what in the heck was going on. You see the water, you decide that it’s water, so the brain already prepares and taste buds, and everything to receive water, but when the seven up hits your mouth, the brain has to back track and switch all of it’s reference information. That can take up to a second, and during that second your brain is temporarily off line. It’s actually pretty cool.

But after he talked to him, he did turn out to be a hobbyist. He liked to travel, and he would just pick stuff up at random, usually on his way to the airport out of wherever he had visited. If he were into furniture, he would have all kinds of different furniture pieces. If had been into music, for example, he may have had different musical instruments from different countries.

But because he’d picked up all his stuff in a completely random method, none of it fell into the same category, which made watching him move in so interesting. He was just some goofball who collected a bunch of random stuff from bunch of random places.

The interesting thing is that he told me that after watching this guy move for a couple hours, and just feeling his brain be sent in all different directions as he tried to figure out the connection between all this different stuff, he said he had this weird feeling for a couple of days afterward. Like he somehow felt he had more room in his brain or something, like it was stretched out somehow.

He said that he was able to remember things that he’d thought he’d forgotten, and was able to remember other things in ways that were different than he had originally experienced them.

Watch Out For Number One

It’s Good To Be Selfish

I’ve been reading more of Dawkins lately, namely “The Selfish Gene” and I’m astounded by it’s insights. The basic premise is that all behavior of all organisms is strictly rooted in pure selfishness of the individual organisms, be it the mold on the cheese in your refrigerator, a baby kangaroo, or you. Whenever there appears to be some kind of altruistic behavior, it can easily be explained in terms of selfishness of the individual. Evolution has filtered out the behaviors that aren’t the most beneficial to the survival of the individual.

One example is fighting among animals. Many male animals will fight to maintain dominance of the heard. Countless studies have shown that whoever is the top dog, or the head wolf, or the alpha chimp, will get most of the females (and most of the sex) and most of the food. Being on top is extremely important in the animal world. (And yes, humans are animals, in case you’re wondering.)

The interesting thing is that when animals fight, either over a woman, or a scrap of food, or a particularly valuable piece of real estate, they will rarely fight to the death. They usually spend lots of time posturing and staring each other down. And when they do get into it rarely do they fight to the death. As soon as one animal is down, the victor refrains from delivering the final deathblow, like in the gladiator movies.

Why is this? Wouldn’t it make sense just to kill your rival and be done with it, in case he returns later, stronger and more ready to kill you? Actually, no it doesn’t.

There is a complex mathematical model of inherent behavior that animals have when they get into a fight. And depending one how it works out over time, certain behaviors are more likely to survive, generation after generation. In a society filled with animals that fight to the death, the fights would be much more bloody and extended, and even the victor would have a large chance of sustaining bodily injury. So a gene that says, “fight your enemy to the death” wouldn’t be very popular. Consider a group of animals where every one had an instinct to “fight to the death.” Every time there was a fight, there would be one dead animal, and one seriously messed up animal. It wouldn’t take long for the population to diminish.

Now consider what would happen if in that, “fight to the death” society, came a mutant, who had an instinct that said, “when threatened, run away.” That animal would actually have a pretty good chance of mating, and making more copies of itself, as it would always be healthy, while most of the other animals would be busy fighting to the death.

Consider the opposite. Imagine a group of animals that had an instinct of “when provoked, run away.” Nobody would ever fight, and nobody would ever be injured. But all it would take would be one mutant that had the “fight to the death” gene, and he would pretty much clean house. He would scare away all the other males, and he’d get all the women to himself. Of course, in few generations, there would be lots of more fight to the deathers, until there would be equilibrium.

Of course, fight to the death, and run like the wind are not the only two possible strategies. Other strategies are “stare your opponent down for at least a minute,” or “never attack, but if attacked respond with force,” or “attack once, if there is a counter attack, run like the wind.” All these strategies, of course, are automatic and completely unconscious. The animals in question don’t learn from previous encounters. They just come with built in, pre programmed fighting strategies, and the law of averages takes care of the rest. Every animal is trying to get the most out of his environment, with the least amount of pain or effort. (Sounds like us.)

When watching a couple of tigers fighting, and seeing that the victor doesn’t quickly snap the neck of his opponent, it can seem like they have some pre arranged fighting rules, like MMA. They don’t. It’s just that successive generations have filtered out the strategies that don’t work well. And by not working well, that means living long enough to make more copies of yourself.

Luckily, even though humans are animals, we have conscious minds. We can learn from our mistakes, and plan for our future. We can either try and get the most out the situation right then and there, at the expense of whoever gets in our way, or we can take a longer look at things, and plant seeds that we can harvest later in life.

Robbing a bank can provide a large, quick sum of money. There are plenty of risks involved (I refer you to the recent Johnny Depp movie “Public Enemies,”) but can provide a quick payoff. The underlying intent is pure selfishness. I want money, I want it now, and I don’t care who gets hurt in the process. High potential payoff, high risk of negative failure (going to jail, or being shot.)

If you are a bank robber, you can learn from your mistakes. Plan your heists accordingly, so there is less risk each time, and more payoff.

Investing in the stock market over ten years can provide a large sum of money. There are plenty of risks involved, but can provide a large payoff. The underlying intent is pure selfishness. I want money, but I don’t plan on spending it until I’m ready to retire. The only person that stands to lose anything is me. High potential payoff, medium risk of neutral failure (all your invested money ends up being equal to zero.)

If you are long-term investor, you can study your trades, learn from your mistakes, and have a fair chance of having long-term success.

Sticking fifty bucks under your mattress every week can provide you with a tidy sum of money ten or twenty years in the future. The motive is pure selfishness. There is very low risk. There is a fairly even trade off. You don’t spend your money today, so you can spend it tomorrow. You know exactly what the cash amount will be in the future. There is very low risk of any loss, other than losing the value of your money due to inflation. You can’t really learn from your mistakes, unless you by a new mattress, or learn various stuffing under the mattress techniques.

You can bust into a bank, and steal other people’s money. You are selfish. You benefit, they suffer. Win lose.

Or you can “loan” you money to a company, through the purchase of their stocks. They get money to invest into their business. You get to be a part owner. They use your money, they grow their business, your shares grow, and you make money. You both benefit from each other’s selfishness. Win win.

Or you stick your money under a mattress. Nobody benefits but you, but nobody else benefits, and nobody else loses. Win.

Three strategies for making, with three different risk/reward ratios. But like I said early, we have conscious memories, and can visualize a reasonably good approximation of the future. You can look back into your past, see what strategies you implemented, and what results they’ve produced. You can then look into your future and see if these same strategies are likely to give you what you want a few years down the line. If not, you can easily change strategies.

Three different levels of selfishness. I suggest to you that the best and most lucrative selfishness is win win. It stands to reason that it would be a good idea then, to find as many other people that you can where your selfishness, and there selfishness will overlap in some mutually beneficial way.

No reason for stealing, no reason for fighting to the death. Respect your own selfish desires, respect other people’s selfish desires, find as many overlaps as possible, and everybody’s a winner.

The Virtue Of Selfishness

What’s In It For Me?

Recently (like yesterday recently) I started reading a new book (new for me, it was first published back in the seventies) by Dawkins, called “The Selfish Gene,” while I’m only about fifty pages in, so far it is fascinating. Up until the book was first published, there were a lot of misconceptions (as there still are) about evolution, and the mechanics of evolution. What Dawkins offers in “The Selfish Gene” is a new paradigm of looking at the mechanics of evolution and the driving forces behind it.

In the preface to the edition I’m currently reading, he says it wasn’t uncommon for him to receive letters from readers explaining how this book caused them great feelings of despair and loneliness, and some even sinking into bouts of depression.

It reminds me of a scene in the movie “Knowing” with Nicolas Cage. He plays a professor of astrophysics, who is still suffering emotional pain and confusion from losing his wife, and struggling with raising a son on his own. His son’s school opens a time vault, when kids back in the fifties put in pictures of what they thought the future would look like. One creepy girl wrote a bunch of numbers as her picture. Then in the present, when they open up the vault, Cage’s character’s son gets the piece of paper with all the numbers on it. The numbers, of course, accurately predict various catastrophes, including the impending end of the world.

The scene I’m referring to is when he is standing in front of the class and poses the question (paraphrased):

What is the nature of the universe? Is there some grand plan, is all this unfolding according some grand scheme, or is everything we see just a result of random interaction of matter, with no intrinsic meaning whatsoever?

Of course all the kids in his class have expressions of “Dude who took a dump in your Cheerios this morning?”

But that is what those letter writers to Dawkins said that this book convinced them of. That the universe is nothing more than a random sequence of events, leading up to us, starting from a blog of organic matter in a pool of sludge millions of years ago, and somehow, through successive mistakes in replication, here we are. Bob’s your uncle.

Here’s the basic argument from “The Selfish Gene” Millions of years ago, there were a bunch of molecules that could reproduce themselves. In order to replicate themselves, they had to use elements form their environment. Whatever they could find in the sludge floating around them. Some molecules were better at replication that others. Either they were faster, or lived longer, or better at attracting the elements from their environment, the pool of sludge.

After a while, the ones that were better at replication outnumbered the ones that weren’t so good at replication. If you put a couple of rabbits in the same environment as a couple of turtles, after a few months, there will be many more rabbits than turtles. And if the rabbits and the turtles eat the same food, guess what is going to happen to the turtles?

This is how it all started with DNA. The DNA that was better at making copies of itself soon outstripped the DNA that was not so good. Now consider this: Each time they replicate themselves, they can make a mistake. Sometimes the resultant replication will be better at replication, sometimes it will be worse. So sometimes, when it makes a mistake in replication, it actually may improve its replication rate.

And the environment doesn’t contain an endless supply of resources to use in the replication process. Groups of these DNA molecules have to “compete” for resources. Sometimes a mistake is made in the replication process, and its “copy” is better at securing these resources. Anytime a mistake is made in replication that both increases its replication rate, and increases its efficiency in securing resources, the mistake is a “good” mistake, and will be propagated into the future. Mistakes that decrease it’s replication rate, and decrease its ability to get stuff to make more copies of itself would be “bad” mistakes, and wouldn’t propagate into the future.

You let this process go on for a while, and pretty soon these DNA molecules have come up with some pretty ingenious ways of replicating themselves. They’ve built structures around themselves, and used these structures to secure resources in order to reproduce.

Let this go on for millions of years, and some startling changes have happened to these original molecules. They have formed several different types of organisms. Some live in water some live on land. Some fly, some walk. Some climb trees, some live underground. Some band together into groups, or herds, and work together to secure resources to further their likelihood of replication.

This is where it gets interesting. Many believe that we are somehow programmed through our DNA for the survival of our species. What made Dawkins book such an interesting paradigm is that every so-called “altruistic” act that seems to be “taking one for the team,” can be explained in terms of pure selfishness from the individual gene’s point of view.

It might seem nice the bees and flowers can work together to help each other out, but the honeybee only cares that it gets the nectar. That it is helping the flower spread it’s pollen is of no consequence. From the flowers point of view, it couldn’t care less how successful the bees are at building a colony and feeding its queen. It only cares that it pays some nectar to get its pollen spread. It only appears to be altruistic because there is an overlap in each species selfishness. The same goes for animals within it’s own species. When chimps groom each other, it looks to us humans like they are simply being nice. But primatologists know they are really planting the seeds of reciprocity, no different from when Don Corleone did all those favors when he was young. He knew he could demand pay later on, like the funeral director.

To extend Dawkin’s selfish gene theory, one may conclude all the kindness, altruism, giving to the homeless, feeding the hungry, is based on pure selfishness, and desire for personal gain. That our selfish behaviors overlap into so called win/win scenarios only gives it the illusion of selfless altruism.

Even when Jesus told the parable of the sheep and the goats, the intention of the story was to explain what was needed in order to get into heaven. Those that fed the hungry, clothes and naked the sheltered the homeless were allowed into everlasting life. Those that didn’t were sent to hell. Literally. Jesus never said to give to the hungry just for the sake of giving to the hungry. Give to the hungry so you can get into heaven. That the hungry get some food out of the deal is as secondary.

Many people mistakenly think of selfishness as only one-way selfishness, or worse, getting something for yourself at the expense of somebody else. That, of course, doesn’t do anybody any good. It doesn’t take much to imagine that only looking out for number one regardless of the consequences to others will leave you hated, or in jail, or worse. It’s okay to make sure you’re always getting something out of the deal, so long as the other guy is as well.

Here’s another story of heaven and hell. In heaven, as well as hell, everybody has an endless supply of soup, but a really really long spoon. People in hell sit around and jealously guard their soup. Their spoon is so long that they can’t possible feed themselves, so they are always hungry, and worried that somebody is going to steal their stuff.

In heaven, on the other hand, people use their long spoons to feed each other, knowing full well that if they help out somebody else, they will get helped in return.

The law of reciprocity applies both in heaven, and in hell. If you feed people, you get fed. If you don’t, you starve.

Up to you.

Money Love

Open The Floodgates

I remember I went on this backpacking trip once. We had planned it out fairly thoroughly, reading several guidebooks, and buying maps with different levels detail. One thing that we couldn’t really plan on was the size of the rivers. The mountains we were planning on hiking in were in the Sierra Nevada range in California. Those mountains have several thousand small lakes, which are fed by the annual rainfall, creating several thousand streams and rivers of various sizes.

Because these streams and rivers are so numerous, you inevitably have to cross one or two large ones if you are going on hike that is longer than a day or two. Since these mountains are kept as pure as possible, from a human interaction point of view, doing anything other than keep debris from blocking established trails is strictly prohibited. This means that no bridges exist, or do strategic placements of stones. It’s not uncommon to spend several hours wandering up and down a riverbank looking for an appropriate place to cross.

Often time there is not real danger, but when hiking with a pair of wet boots is never a pleasant experience. It makes it much easier to get blisters, which can ruin an entire trip. Crossing a river without getting wet is ideal.

Generally speaking, when looking for a place to cross, you either look for a point where the river is particularly narrow, where crossing will only take a couple strategically places steps. Other times the best you can do is find a place that is relatively shallow, and simply walk across. If you are lucky, and the bottom is relatively smooth, you can take off your shoes and wade across, with the water hopefully not getting higher than your waist. Keep in mind this water is freshly melted snow, so it is really cold.

The ideal is a slow moving river that is shallow enough and narrow enough to not get your boots wet. The worst I’ve ever experienced was when we had to strip down to our underwear, carry our packs over our heads, and cross that way. The best place we could find to cross was about four meters across, and about a meter deep. Luckily the bottom was sandy, and the water was flowing slow enough that it didn’t pose any danger. But it was really, really cold.

I was listening to an interview on the radio the other and they were talking about this book called “Flow,” where the author described the experience when you are completely and fully engaged in something to the exclusion of all else. It is a fascinating feeling, usually experienced by athletes and artists. If you’ve ever experienced it, then you know what it’s like. Everything seems to disappear, and any conscious interference that exists normally is virtually shut off. You become a machine, fully focused on the event at hand. It’s almost as if you are watching yourself flawlessly performing some task.

One of the most esoteric conversations you can have with yourself is regarding the metaphysical flow of money. You can look at it as a purely right-brained physical based entity, obeying the laws of physics and of cause and effect. You do certain things, and you get a certain amount of money. You want certain things and you give up a certain amount of money. Other schools of thought, usually thought a little bit on the new agey side, teach the money should be thought of as a flow of energy, and that all you need to do is open yourself up, in both directions. That is, in order to have money flowing in just as readily as it flows out, you should set up your consciousness to appreciate the exchange in both directions. You should be just as happy to receive product or services in exchange for your money, as you should in receiving money for your products or services.

I’ve even read some suggestions saying you should write a big “Thank You” on your checks to the IRS every year.

The interesting thing about money is that if flows whether we want it to or not. For the whole of human history, until only a few thousand years ago, there wasn’t any money. Now there is hundreds of millions traded every day on the Forex Exchange. This is just different country swapping out their currencies at the end of every single day.

Whatever your own personal beliefs about money are, money is there, money is flowing, and it would probably do you some good to figure out a way to get in on the action. It’s not like there is a finite size of the pie, and once the pieces are gone, they’re gone. The money supply increases every year, and the ways and paths that it flows increase as well.

And the cool thing about money flow is that you don’t have to worry about getting swept away by the current, or worrying about keeping your boots dry. You can just dive right in. Kick the boulders out of the way and let if flow. They’ll be plenty more where that came from.