Speak and Doublespeak

We had to destroy the village in order to save it. US Army press release during Vietnam.

An act of asymmetrical warfare.

Rear Adm. Harry Harris in describing 3 prisoners who hanged themselves at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba

WAR IS PEACE. FREEDOM IS SLAVERY. IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH. From George Orwell's 1984

"Where is the indignation, the outrage, at the lies in which we are immersed?" Clearly, the answer lies deeper than the machinations of one or another faction of the power elite. It lies deeper than the subversion and control of the media. Part of our society's apathy arises from a subtle and profound disempowerment: the de-potentiation of language itself, along with all other forms of symbolic culture. Words are losing their power to create and to transform. The result is a tyranny that can never be overthrown, but will only proceed toward totality until it collapses under the weight of the multiple crises it inevitably generates.

As we acclimate ourselves to a ubiquitous matrix of lies, words mean less and less to us, and we don't believe anything any more." Found here

In his 1946 "Politics and The English Language," George Orwell had this to say:

"Most people who bother with the matter at all would admit that the English language is in a bad way, but it is generally assumed that we cannot by conscious action do anything about it. Our civilization is decadent and our language -- so the argument runs -- must inevitably share in the general collapse. It follows that any struggle against the abuse of language is a sentimental archaism, like preferring candles to electric light or hansom cabs to aeroplanes. Underneath this lies the half-conscious belief that language is a natural growth and not an instrument which we shape for our own purposes." More

What Comes After Death?

In our planning for tomorrow,
it has the final word,
which is always beside the point.

It can't even get the things done
that are part of its trade:
dig a grave,
make a coffin,
clean up after itself.

Wislawa Szymborska, part of her "On Death, without Exaggeration"


"During my mother’s final weeks of illness, a rabbi told her that she could choose to imagine death as an exciting possibility. His intent was to comfort, and perhaps he did. As life’s end nears, religious faith is, above all, utilitarian – a passport through regret and fear to a destination that is still unknown, uncharted.

What wouldn’t we give to know it? Better yet, to know it without being compelled to visit.

In SUM: Forty Tales from the Afterlives (Pantheon Books), the neuroscientist David Eagleman does what the rabbi urged on my mother: He lets his imagination run free. In 40 pithy vignettes, he offers variations on the theme of immortality – sketches of theoretical heavens and hells that are really philosophical musings on human striving, yearning, and fallibility.

In his search for meaning, Eagleman casts a cold eye on both life and death, thrusting us into universes tinged with sadness. The presiding deities in these stories are less often omnipotent than blundering and defeated. Their plans dazzle, but veer into blind alleys. The meticulously constructed ideal keeps colliding with reality." Found here. Click here for a Mind Shadows piece, "Whistling Past The Graveyard," on William Hazlitt, who said you have no fear of what happened before you were born, so why be afraid of what happens after?

On that somber theme, here is a wise metaphor on the metaphysics of the afterlife:

A man fell off a cliff and, tumbling down, he grabbed a small rock. He looked up at the cliff rim, so far away. He looked down at the bottom, its trees tiny in the distance, its earth waiting to flatten him. In desperation, he turned his head toward the sky and shouted for all he was worth.

"HELP! IS ANYBODY UP THERE?"

A majestic voice boomed through the gorge:

"I will help you, my son, but first you must have faith in me."

"Yes, yes, I trust you!" cried the man.

"Let go of the branch," boomed the voice.

The man paused, and shouted again,

"IS ANYONE ELSE UP THERE?"
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And finally, there is this, found on a church bulletin board:

The sermon this morning: "Jesus Walks on the Water." The sermon tonight: "Searching for Jesus"

and this, a limerick:

I get up each morning and dust off my wits,
Pick up the paper and read the obits.
If my name is not in them I know I'm not dead,
So I eat a good breakfast and go back to bed.

Do We Have Free Will?

"Many scientists and philosophers are convinced that free will doesn’t exist at all. According to these skeptics, everything that happens is determined by what happened before—our actions are inevitable consequences of the events leading up to the action—and this fact makes it impossible for anyone to do anything that is truly free. This kind of anti-free will stance stretches back to 18th century philosophy, but the idea has recently been getting much more exposure through popular science books and magazine articles. Should we worry? If people come to believe that they don’t have free will, what will the consequences be for moral responsibility?" More

For a different view of the question, click here. Of course, somebody else takes exception to that view. Click here to read a different view of the different view.

Then, of course, there are more serious, life-consuming issues such as these, which should be on everybody's list:

MUST-HAVES FOR 2010:

Prague's Franz Kafka International Named World's Most Alienating Airport.

Prague's Franz Kafka International is named the world's most alienating airport. It should undergo a metamorphosis, or maybe they should put its managers on trial. After all, they don't live in a castle. (Anybody groaning yet? Or are you merely feeling existential angst? Yeah, I know, my sense of humor isn't for everybody.)

Ants, Epiphenomalism, & Collective Intelligence

Is human consciousness an epiphenomenon? That is, does it evolve out of the physical, of which matter is the primary phenomenon? If so, it is an emergent property. To be sure, the brain can cause ideas, but ideas cannot cause a brain. Belief in epiphenomenism leads to disbelief in free will, for ideas cannot affect matter. You and I, our thoughts, our beliefs, our volition, are caused by the physical. In other words, you ain't nothin' but a hunk of dust.

Here is a different approach to the same question:

"Put a hundred army ants on a flat surface and they will walk around in never decreasing circles until they die from exhaustion. But a colony of a million army ants is a sophisticated 'super-organism.' The colony carries out its legendary raids and can even keep nest temperatures constant to within a degree. An army ant colony seems endowed with an intelligence far beyond that of any individual ant. N.R.Franks speculates thus:

'It seems that intelligence, natural or artificial, is an emergent property of collective communication. Human consciousness itself may be an epiphenomenon of extraordinary processing power. Although experts prefer to avoid simplistic definitions of intelligence, it seems clear that all intelligence involves the rational manipulation of symbolic information. This is exactly what happens when army ants pass information from individual to individual through the 'writing' and 'reading' of symbols, often in the form of chemical messengers or trail pheromones, which act as stimuli for changing behavior patterns.' " More

On the other hand, Stuart Hameroff has an argument against consciousness as an epiphenomenon: “. . . evidence suggests backwards time effects occur in the brain. Quantum entanglement apparently depends on seemingly backward time effects which, as unconscious quantum information, can potentially rescue consciousness from the unfortunate position of illusory epiphenomenon.” (Found here.) For a quicker read of Hameroff and Roger Penrose, in which consciousness is not characterized "as epiphenomenon, but as [an] intrinsic component of the universe" click on this. Also find Hameroff in the left sidebar of Mind Shadows.

From DNA & Consciousness to Snorts, Sighs, & Happiness

All DNA does is unzip into another form: here is a genetic/cellular argument that nothing dies, nor is born, and all is part of one life. There is only one life, and it is shared by all human beings.

So you are bored? Try Studies on Consciousness, Cognition, and Life. Take your pick: The nature of consciousness; the nature of Mind; the philosophy of mind; Neurobiology, Theoretical physics.

"Human history can be understood as a long, unbroken sequence of snorts and sighs and other self-modifications of our mental states." Love? Ambition? Heroism? And you thought there was something noble in it? (I still do.)

A grab bag of books on happiness revealed this statement: "A full forty percent of the capacity for happiness is within your power to change." Really? And on what verifiable data is this statement based? Sounds more like an academic version of Oprah Winfrey to me.

Type A Personalities

Are you a "Type A" personality? A hard charger, no-nonsense kind of person who doesn't mind knocking heads together to get the job done? Or do you tend to dislike people who are Type A? If you do, you aren't alone. Nobody seems to like them. That being the case, why do they get advanced ahead of other, more likable types? Look around. Read the business pages. The Type A holds down CEO positions, and other positions of power. What's the reason for this? Are they more competent than those with better people skills?

Researchers at University of California Berkeley tried to find out. Continued...
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On economic matters, take a look at these to learn what the diligent shopper can find in classified ads.

John Rabe, The Good Nazi

John Rabe (1882-1950) was a remarkable man whose story should be spread far and wide. A Nazi party member, he was deeply human and saved countless lives during the Rape of Nanking by the Japanese Imperial Army. Like so many others, he believed that Hitler provided a future for Germany. Living in China, he was unaware of the Brown Shirts, the SS, and the Gestapo. Employed by Siemans he was witness to history as the Japanese invaded China. In what is now Nanjing (Nanking), he established an International Safety Zone to shelter some 200,000 Chinese people from slaughter during the massacre.

Born in Hamburg, Germany, Rabe was a businessman in Africa for several years. Interested in the world beyond Germany's borders, in 1908 he moved to China. In 1910 he was hired by the Siemens AG China Corporation and worked for it until 1938.

"On November 22, 1937, as the Japanese Army advanced on Nanjing, Rabe, along with other foreign nationals, organized the International Committee and created the Nanjing Safety Zone to provide Chinese refugees with food and shelter from the impending Japanese slaughter. He explained his reasons thus: '...there is a question of morality here...I cannot bring myself for now to betray the trust these people have put in me, and it is touching to see how they believe in me.' The zones were located in all of the foreign embassies and at Nanjing University. Rabe also opened up his properties to help 650 more refugees. The following massacre would kill hundreds of thousands of people, while Rabe and his zone administrators tried frantically to stop the atrocities. His attempts to appeal to the Japanese by using his Nazi membership credentials only delayed them; but that delay allowed hundreds of refugees to escape. The documentary film Nanking credited him for saving the lives of 250,000 Chinese civilians."

"On February 28, 1938 Rabe left Nanjing, travelling to Shanghai and then back to Germany. He showed films and photographs of Japanese atrocities in lecture presentations in Berlin and wrote to Hitler to use his influence to persuade the Japanese to stop any more inhumane violence. As a result, Rabe was detained and interrogated by the Gestapo and his letter to Hitler was never delivered to him. Due to the intervention of Siemens AG, Rabe was released. He was allowed to keep evidence of the massacre, excluding the film, but was not allowed to lecture or write on the subject. Rabe would continue working for Siemens, which posted him briefly to the safety of Afghanistan. Rabe subsequently worked in the Berlin headquarters of the company until the end of the war." More.

More on what happened to him after the war, and on his death and legacy. About John Rabe, The Good Man of Nanking. A new movie on his life has been recently produced. The video below is about the Japanese Rape of Nanking, in which 300,000 lives were lost, and about John Rabe and the making of the movie.