Making Sense

'I'm like a sort of living carpet. I need a pattern, a design.

(...) Could one have the design without the  carpet

(but this seemed like the smile without the Cheshire cat)?

Oliver Sachs, The Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Hat

I once said to my friend `managing people is a lot like programming` - one must take the work at hand and break it down into smaller, more readily achievable tasks; ideally, these must be such that they can be independently planned, coordinated and completed; the separate modules and their outputs must interface coherently with one another, and be scheduled and synchronised and  aggregated into a working, meaningful solution; the people to whom they are assigned, much like technology, must be fit for purpose, have the abilities required for the job, be well understood, expressive. Perhaps the reasoning we apply to software engineering can be equally useful at trying to engineer the execution of a plan.

But wait. Programming is also a lot like putting together IKEA furniture: the assembling of complicated aggregate structures, out of confusingly numerous constituent parts, many of which incomprehensible in isolation, their coming together never obvious from the onset, and their composition - if ever at all possible - only achievable by the holding of the puzzle pieces all at once, like thoughts in one's working memory, a mind-boggling n-dimensional puzzle, all up in the air, in some impossible, gravity-defying edifice, until one suddenly gets a grasp of the whole and that last bolt or thought or detail, which hitherto lay unnoticed on the floor, suddenly and magically ties everything together.

And in fact programming is indeed very much like creative writing too, whose object is never the work of an orderly and structured weaving of one's thoughts, like the neat laying of bricks in the efficient erection of a building, but a Sisyphean struggle: a constant stretch, incessant tensing of one's mind against the pained, almost spasmodic clenching and explosion of one's thoughts - all to achieve that one, brief, precious, fragile flash of balance, when it all holds together, all at once, improbably suspended, into that splendid, always sought for, much desired something meaningful.

Who are we but the conceptual vocabularies within which we represent our world? And what is the world but the absolute, integral sum of these vocabularies? A beautiful, infinite, almighty Semantic Singularity, into the depths of which, lured by our yearn to understand, we will be irretrievably forgotten.

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The Trouble With Easter*

Cognitive science and behavioural psychology tell us that there are certain fundamental problems which we as humans must learn how to solve pretty fast if we are to become successful and fully functional inhabitants of our surrounding world. These include the ability to distinguish between inanimate objects and 'agents', recognising faces, parsing speech, reading other peoples' intentions and avoiding contaminants. Because they are essential, these cognitive systems evolve fast, in an automatic way and without effort. Because they develop in this way, they are prone to false positives (for instance, our propensity for recognising faces means we see them everywhere: in the clouds, in blots of paint, in pictures of the surface of Mars and various cheese sandwiches). Cultural ideas which speak to these cognitive systems are more readily absorbed than those which do not. It is no surprise then that religions should be so successful. They speaks to not one but all of them.

Cake is to God What Ball Is To Chicken
Babies only a few months old know that books (which must be contacted in order to move) are unlike people or animals (which can happily move by themselves). This is a fundamental distinction. Inanimate objects obey the laws of physics and causality, they behave in predictable and mostly well understood ways. Agents on the other hand, have minds of their own and, as such, can act upon their surroundings according to their own rules.

Experiments with both children and adults have shown that whenever an inanimate object starts to behave in an unpredictable way, people immediately start to reason about it as if it were an agent. You can verify this by looking at the language they employ. Inanimate objects are spoken of in the passive voice (a book is read and an apple is eaten), while agents - in the active one (people read and go places). Thus, when you start talking about your computer as not wanting to work or your SatNav deciding to take you on a different route, you are succumbing to the view that things which do not behave following an obvious pattern must have a mind of their own.

A notion of God speaks directly to this inclination. From a wander at why the Sun rises and sets at regular intervals there is only one step to the notion of a Sun God. This sort of reasoning spawns what is known as 'natural religion' and it underwrites in great part our readiness to believe in the existence of intelligent invisible agents.

Keep It Simple
We have evolved to derive rules and find patterns. It is easy to reason about a metal ball shattering a glass window when thrown at it, because there is a reason for this to happen: it is a common pattern, the same one each time. It is difficult to become religious about things which are well understood, such as the ball shattering the window. There is no God of balls shattering windows in the same way that there is a God of Existence.

Keep It Neat
Explanations which involve design or purpose are far more readily absorbed, than whose which merely explain observation, but do not interpret it. Experiments have shown that children accept creationism as an explanation for the origin of life far more easily than evolution, even when they are formally educated towards the latter. One study showed that children aged 5 found it more sensible for a tiger to have been 'made for eating and walking and being seen at the zoo' than the idea that 'though it can eat and walk and be seen at the zoo, that's not what it's made for' (Journal of Cognition and Development, vol. 6, p.3). Again, the idea of a Designer falls immediately into place with this propensity.

Until Seen Otherwise
When reasoning about things, it makes perfect sense to formulate whichever hypothesis we perceive to be the easiest to falsify. This is why we have working ideas such as 'innocent until proven guilty' or mathematical proof by contradiction. When it comes to truthfulness, the easiest hypothesis to invalidate is that X is telling the truth: one instance of a lie is sufficient to show otherwise. When it comes to the minds of others, the easiest hypothesis to invalidate is that everyone else is all-knowing: one instance of their limitation is enough to disprove it.

One experiment gave a group of 5 to 7 year old Maya children a gourd which, while normally holding tortillas, held on this occasion boxer shorts. They were then asked which of a number of agents (including the Catholic god known as Diyoos, the Maya sun god, the forest spirits, a bogeyman-like creature Chiichi' and a human) would know without looking the contents of the gourd. The youngest of the children guessed that all of them would. By the age of 7, most guessed the gods would know, but the human probably wouldn't. That the minds of other agents are not all-knowing is something we learn by practice and are taught by culture.

Cleanliness Is Next To Godliness
Temples and sacred spaces, along with a notion of purity and the rituals which are meant to protect it speak directly to our need of recognising and staying away from contaminants. Incidentally, this sort of fear is very politically useful - a fear of contamination translates easily into an aggression towards possible contaminants. It is also shared by all types of humans - liberals as well as conservatives become religious about purity: whether it is the purity of the food and drinks they are willing to put inside their bodies, or that of the planet itself.

I'll Show You Mine If You Show Me Yours
Finally, religion speaks to our need to read the intentions of others, which is a prerequisite of collaboration. In smaller communities, kinship (being blood related) and reciprocity (expecting something in return) sufficed for enforcing this sort of behaviour amongst individuals. In small hunter-gatherer communities, where everyone knew everyone else, the Gods had no moral concern. There was no need to. Alas, as communities grew larger, individuals started to misbehave under the cloth of anonymity. This is when an all-knowing, all-seeing and morally concerned God becomes terribly useful. This too is where requiring adherence to a series of expensive and hard to fake rituals (such as praying five times a day) helps identify free riders.

Experiments have shown again and again that people who, prior to performing a task, were prompted to think of God or religion were far less likely to cheat at it. Unfortunately, the same effect was achieved by prompting people to think of secular reminders of moral authority, words such as civic, jury, or the police. Secular society has taken over the functions traditionally performed by religion, by way of juridical institutions and mechanisms for enforcing contracts, private property and so on. The worlds most cooperative, peaceful and prosperous societies are ones in which religion has become largely a private matter better kept outside of public life. To quote from Ara Norenzayan's article '[they have] climbed religion's ladder and then kicked it away'.

A Beautiful Mind
All of these 'maturationally natural' cognitive systems underwrite what is known as 'natural religion', which is largely unscrutinised and spontaneous. There is, of course, the other kind: slow, deliberate and conscious reflection about the meaning and truth of religious claims - 'theology'. Theology sets doctrines and abstract formulations of natural religions which are conceptually complex and difficult to understand, e.g. God being three persons. Because of this, theological correctness is difficult to enforce, as the mental propensities of natural religion constantly intrude.

Experiments across cultures and religious systems have consistently shown that even after being asked to recite and affirm a set of doctrines, people still immediately abandon theological correctness in favour of popular religion. Here, science might be warned by the woes of theology. If God being three persons is a difficult concept to grasp, then what hope is there for quantum mechanics, or evolution or Maths? To quote from Robert McCauley, 'science is far more complicated than theology. Its esoteric interests, radically counter-intuitive claims and sophisticated forms of inference are difficult to invent, learn and communicate'. Scientists and theologists alike might try to explain Easter, whether by a story of resurrection or an anthropologically traceable festival of Spring. But in the end we all know it's all about the eggs.

* Easter is a good time to talk about God. I recently read a series of articles which I thought were quite interesting, so what follows is a summary of all of them. The originals can be found in the 17 March 2012 issue of the New Scientist.

Legacy

'We are all of us born in moral stupidity, taking

the world as an udder to feed our supreme selves'

George Elliot, Middlemarch, ch. XXI

There were once three wise men. Every day they would get together and deplore the lousy state of affairs in the world, the wide spread suffering and deprivation, the pointless wars people waged against one another, the lack of a vision and purpose of life itself. Discussing, they each tried to conceive ways in which they could contribute to making the world a better place. Thus, the first man founded a trade and became a merchant; the second founded a cult and became a cleric; and the third founded a school and became a teacher.

Employing their outstanding wisdom and sagacity, they all became successful in their respective paths. The merchant grew his trade into a successful enterprise which employed many hundreds of people and brought wealth and prosperity to all its employees. His vision and knack for the workings of the market won him respect amongst his people and everyone followed his lead with utmost enthusiasm and devotion.

The cleric gathered many followers. His sermons eased the ills of a great deal of people and soothed a great deal of souls. The members of his church were kind and thoughtful and with them carried their kindness and their thoughtfulness to the families and the communities to which they belonged. Under the guidance of his wisdom, the inevitable hardships of life became more bearable, the quarrels which aroused amongst people were readily settled and the hopeful collaboration within the community brought it well-being and affluence.

Finally, the teacher taught many tens of students in his school. His lessons opened their minds and helped fulfil their full potential. His graduates went on to live happy and prosperous lives and to make the lives of those around them equally as happy and as prosperous. The outstanding skill and passion the teacher showed for his classes inspired and won the affection of hundreds of people and through the benefits of knowledge his community became very successful.

But as time went by the three men began to feel the nearing of old age. One day, after many years, they got together to talk about how they may pass on their legacy to future generations. They argued for many days over which would be the best way to do this and finally they each decided to attempt a different approach. The merchant wrote a book of rules, detailed and authoritative, which would provide guidance in any foreseeable situation. The cleric decided to go the way of duty and tradition, and began to teach a set of practices to some of the most intelligent members of his church. Finally, the teacher chose to go the way of virtue, and began to teach his students which values had to be praised and which vices had to be condemned.

Soon thereafter the three men died. Their legacy was prised and revered and their communities carried on in its spirit for many years. But soon time took its toll. The merchant's book of rules began to become outdated. Situations aroused that were not anticipated, new challenges faced those in charge of conducting his business. The cleric's tradition began to be perverted; the men to whom he passed on his wisdom began to forget the details of his teachings and, as generations replaced one another, the original customs insidiously began to change. To prevent the tradition from fading, some clerics tried to write it down. But the writings were sometimes poorly phrased or incomplete and those who inherited them often failed to interpret them accurately and adequately. Some were even malicious and self-serving, perverting the spirit of duty to further their own ends. Finally, the teacher's school began to fall short of its calling. The new teachers were less able and less visionary. They often sounded doctrinal and dry. The virtues they still tried to instil within their students often did not resonate with the needs and challenges of modern life. The teachers, lacking wisdom, failed to understand how to adapt. Thus, the rules became dogmatic, the traditions - dated, the virtues - obsolete.

Many centuries later, a group of young people scurried silently along the corridors of their town's old museum. When they came to the entrance hall, they were brought before a portrait of the three wise men, which stood hanging beneath the words These wise men held the secret to a prosperous, glorious living. Leaning to his friend, one of the students scoffed: "Selfish bastards, keeping all that knowledge to themselves".

 The Garden Of Earthly Delights, a triptych by early Netherlandish Master Hieronymus Bosch

The Circle Of Trust

Human beings are ethical animals. I do not mean that we naturally

behave particularly well, nor that we are endlessly telling each other what to do.

But we grade and evaluate, and compare and admire, and claim and justify.

We do not just 'prefer' this or that, in isolation.

We prefer that our preferences are shared; we turn them into demands on each other.

Events endlessly adjust our sense of responsibility, our guilt and shame,

and our sense of our own worth and that of others.

Simon Blackburn, Ethics

'Trust is something you can only lose once' - Constantin Noica

Trust is one of these things we all think we know something about. We claim to deserve it from others and expect others to be deserving of our own. Being approached with caution and reserve offends us and no righteousness is more soothing than the anger at having been deceived.

Above all, trust is a precious currency. It keeps lawyers, insurers and estate agents in business more or less forever.

And where insurance policies don't apply it must be gained through painstaking displays of authenticity and loyalty. One must prove oneself and time must tell. Once earned, it must be guarded, with carrot and stick from malice and stupidity.

Still - more fragile is earnestness, optimism and joy. Freedom from the dismal, sullen fear of a broken heart. Trust you may regain, faults you may redeem. New patrons may stumble upon you and your credit history may be left behind. But this talent of living wholly and without reserve - that, well that perhaps really is something you can only lose once.

The Becoming

We are creatures of comfort.

We like to be safe and secure

to be surrounded by what we know,
to be in control

to order our lives in the way that suits us.

We want our journeys mapped out for us

itinerary decided, tickets booked

time of arrival guaranteed

refreshment breaks at regular intervals

and a credit card for unforeseen circumstances.

But Jesus said ‘follow me’ without saying where he was going

just promising transformation along the way.

Building houses, having children, planting trees - documenting our passing through time so that one day we may look back and remind ourselves: we once existed. Writing. Writing about houses and children and trees and love and loss and understanding, writing like swimming against the sweeping tide of all things ephemeral. But these are all illusions. The houses will crumble, the children will die, the trees will wither; the words too will one day be forgotten. We know this, yet we carry on documenting everything along the way, because to live is to be in continuous transformation and we must remember which way we came and how we became the person lying on the death bed.

My documentation is poor, yet it has been even poorer. At every major turning of my life, I wish painfully that I could remember all of it hitherto: every meaningful conversation, every insightful book, every article, talk or radio programme and, most importantly, every nuance of every emotion, of every sensation and every thought ever stirred in me by the remarkable people I have met along the way. These would be my houses and my trees, the necessary proofs of my Becoming.

Ideas, especially, are so painfully fickle - I would require another ten life times to make sense of them all. This is why experience must be followed by reflection - how else could we ever learn? I feel the data-gathering part of the cycle is drawing slowly to a close and now I must think. The season is changing. The road must be followed, the transformation must take its course no matter how sad it might be to leave behind all that which has made it possible. I am both the master and the slave of my Becoming.

Liminal space is the place of inbetweenness, of insecurity.

It is the Israelites in the wilderness,

it is Paul blind in Damascus waiting for Ananias.

Liminal space is emptiness and nowhere, it is uncertainty and chaos,

it is a place of discomfort and unrest.

Liminality is a place of dying and rebirth, of metamorphosis,

the place where the caterpillar spins its cocoon and disappears from view.

Nothing good or creative emerges from business as usual.

Much of the work of God is to get people into liminal space and to keep them there

long enough so they can learn something essential.

An atheist myself, I still must recognise and like in this text the idea of liminal spaces being conducive to revelation. Naturally, it is only one incarnation of the idea amongst many, but I like it because it's an old story and a familiar myth. A book by Andrei Plesu which I read a few years ago spoke of a similar notion. The book was About Angels and his thesis - that human life is by its very nature a product of Liminality: we are never there but always on our way. Life is perpetual transformation.

Of course, what follows from this proposition is the thought of accepting change as life itself. This, because it makes our expectations more reasonable. As creatures of inbetweeness, longing for a perpetual, static (and, in that, Angel-like) state of happiness is crazy: the most we can hope for is going through a moment of happiness, like the train through a riveting landscape; but we should never expect for the landscape stretch to onwards eternally, which is a quality reserved for the non-transformational existences of Angels and their God.

I really like this depiction: human life much like a train journey - perpetual transformation; angelic existence much like arriving at the destination and getting off the train. Us, alive, under the imperative of Time's incessant Arrow; Angels, immortal, outside of It - in a timeless (and therefore static) universe. Angels may be happy, the most we can hope for is becoming so. Thus the transformation carries on and our own travel journal with it: more houses, more children, more Life, more trees to make into more books with yet more words to be forgotten. The train runs swiftly towards our impending doom.

But it is not the doom itself that is the cause of my affliction. It is the turning and the rattling of the train as it pulls me rapidly away from this Present, and all its wonders, towards my Future, and all its threats. The more marvellous the journey, the more painful my limited ability to remember everything. Yet, for all my sorrow, I am still one of these people who does in fact prefer the way things are. I like the journey, I like the transition, wherever it might take me next. I am not scared. Or, I am but still Angelic life sounds far too boring. 'This being human is a guest house', I should welcome and entertain it all: the good and the bad, the calm, the lonely, the strange and the wicked. Bring the show on and let us enjoy it, let us stop trying to get ahead of ourselves by attempting to mimic the eternal.

I am not scared, of course, but I am sad. Sad because I may or may not remember it all, the nuances, the thoughts, the sensations, the colours of people, the shape of their minds, the content of their teachings; the scent of nights on bridges, the light of days on roads. But I must carry on with the journey so I may thus try to become better, always better still, and my love for all the wonderful people in my life to come to be worth more, always more still. Then, should my houses and my trees and all these words ever fail to document, perhaps their memory of me could ultimately serve as the necessary proof that I once existed.

In any case, here I am. On a train, with a journal. My stomach painful with anxiety and jumping up and down with joy, my head light with excitement and anticipation, my heart heavy with the sorrow of this saying good bye, still, far too many times. Another hour has gone past. Overall, however, I'm quite happy. Fuelled by an infinite amount of love and tea, playing my tunes, cleaning my shoes, folding my shirts, as from the start, as now once more, as to the end - here still I carry on, Becoming.

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Strange People Do Not Find Strange Things Strange

Fiery passions, dire dreams, certainly to be forgotten
fruits of fancy misbegotten,
ardours, thoughts both rich and rotten,
Pushing reason to extremes.
I must fight the urge, it seems, come to make me a believer,
senses sharp and warm with fever,
Come to leniently lever
Some delightful, vivid dreams.
Reveries, in fact, that stir, bold, intense and wicked really
inclinations to act silly,
wanting to be speaking freely,
Of these fancies that recur,
Of the voice that won't stop calling, and this lightness like a drug
like an illness, like a bug,
could one cure it with a hug?
Sense and passion always brawling.

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Wanderlust

There's always just one more. One more road to be followed, one more hill to be climbed, one more land to be wanted, one more soul to be had. There's always just one more something else, somewhere else, out there, calling. There's the smell of Summer nights, the sound of trains departing in the distance, the warm breeze, the endless sky and the road, winding out of sight, luring you to pick yourself up and just...walk. Walk and never look back, it whispers softly into your ear, walk to where there is no coming back. And you listen, pale and defeated, because the calling rings in your thoughts like the yearning of a lost child and you have no choice but to follow. It hurts and you wish you could stay - another day or perhaps just another hour - but the season is over and you must tear yourself away; did you not say that loneliness was really but a fair price to pay for freedom?

Of course, unlike the sky, the world eventually turns out not to be quite so endless. After the first cities came more cities and yet more cities after those. After this road, oh no!, not yet another road and roads still as far ahead as you can see and as far back as you can remember. It's time that I go back, you think to yourself, lonely, tired, a drifter with no real purpose, a cuckoo without a nest. You listen to the wind and realise: the voice and the calling have now long been gone. So you finally begin your long return journey, tracing your steps back one by one, through all these places and all this life spent searching. You hope, you pray that they might still remember you when you return. You stand still and gaze silently into the distance, one last time, only to see the sun disappear into the turn of the century.

The way home is even longer than you had remembered. As you walk you see houses closing up their doors, with warmly lit sitting rooms full of smiling people, those who never gave in to the calling of their wanderlust. You remember now every house you ever left behind, every love with which you could have quenched your loneliness, every bright sunrise with which you walked away. You hope you will find them again in your way, but they are all long gone and no one remembers them apart from you. Home, you think, hoping, home they will surely know me still, home one day this journey will finally finish and I will be happy and the circle finally complete. Days turn into weeks, months turn into years; there is nothing and no one around but your blistered feet, the evening darkness dripping slowly from across the universe and the road - warm and quiet, stretching endlessly under the wilting sun. But then, suddenly, you sense it and you recognise it: the smell of Summer, the sound of trains departing in the distance. Your heart explodes with joy and you run, laughing, crying, to touch, to see, to smell, to hear, to taste, to know. Where are they, my beloved, my friends, my family, my childhood dreams, my home? But the night is drawing nearer and everyone looks at you with ther strange and hollow gaze: had you not heard? your people have all died long ago, died of a broken heart.