I periodically collect postings about similar subject matter together into a compound posting. There is a list of compound postings in the introduction posting at the top of the blog, and in the posting "Index Of Compound Postings".
This is all about how human society really operates.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
1) THE SIMILARITY OF TASKS
2) THE COINCIDENCE CONSTANT
3) THE CYCLE OF REPETITION
4) ART, MUSIC AND, SPORTS
5) THE PERFECTION OF TECHNOLOGY
6) THE NATURE OF FAIRNESS
7) SYMBOLISM
8) THE PARADOX OF KNOWLEDGE
9) IS HUMANITY ALIVE?
1) THE SIMILARITY OF TASKS
In my information theory humans are at a higher level of complexity, containing more information, than our inanimate surrounding environment. When we alter our environment, such as creating technology or building settlements, we are imposing our higher level of complexity on the environment.
Our higher level of complexity does have it's disadvantages. It is why things that we make and build, and also our bodies, tend to break and deteriorate. The surrounding environment is trying to pull us down to it's lower level of complexity. Even though we know that energy can never be lost or destroyed, but only changed in form, we cannot get energy back, at least not in any useful form, once we have used it.
Energy and information is really the same thing. We can see this in how we cannot add information to anything without applying energy to it, and we cannot apply energy to anything without adding information to it. Another way we can see that energy and information is really the same thing is the way we can make our lives physically easier by technology, but only by making them more complex. We can never, on a large scale, make our lives both physically easier and also less complex.
We are at a higher level of complexity than our surrounding inanimate environment. We have to sustain that higher level with an intake of information. It seems to us that food gives us energy but remember that energy and information is really the same thing. Food is actually the input of information that we need to sustain our higher level of information over our surrounding environment.
We perceive our need for food so that we have the energy to move but movement contains more information than remaining still and the food actually contains information. Our digestive system destroys the information in the food, which is the information in plants but since energy, and thus information, can never be created or destroyed the information is transferred to us. The surrounding environment is trying to pull us down to it's lower level and our food sustains our higher level of information, at least for a while.
Just as we can never create energy out of nothing so we cannot create information out of nothing.
As human knowledge and technology increases society gets ever-more complex. There are more and more different job descriptions and tasks that we do. Even though we are imposing our own complexity on our environment it seems that eventually we would reach a point where the society that we have created is more complex than we are.
But yet that would have to be impossible because it would be creating information out of nothing, and we know that can never happen.
So here is what does happen. There is a principle that I will call the "Similarity Of Tasks". This principle ensures that the society that we create can never exceed our own complexity, so that information is never created out of nothing.
Many of the things that we do are very similar to other things. Humans have been hunting and fishing for thousands of years. Shopping today is very similar to hunting and fishing in that shoppers "hunt" for bargains while stores "fish" for customers. Investing money, in anticipation of getting a return, is likewise very similar to planting seeds in anticipation of reaping the harvest.
This similarity lowers the total complexity. When we have two objects or systems the more similarity there is between them the less total information there is. An equality contains less information than an inequality because we are only dealing with one piece of information, rather than two. So we should expect that the closer to an equality we are, the more similarity, the lower the total amount of information.
So we can be sure that no matter how much knowledge we gain, and how far we progress in technology and society, there will be more and more similarity between the tasks and things that we do so that the total information in all that we have created will never exceed the amount of information in ourselves.
2) THE COINCIDENCE CONSTANT
We often use the phrase "Just by chance...". What this means is a coincidence. Coincidences are all around us, although most go unrecognized.
Following are a few examples of what might be called coincidences.
"You attend a meeting on the other side of town. Back near where you live you go into a store, where you just happen to run into someone who was at the meeting".
"You become friends with someone and find out that you just happen to have the same birthday".
"In your job there is another person seated across from you. The workplace closes down but you find another job at a similar workplace. You find that, just by chance, the same person is again seated across from you".
Here are some examples of coincidences that might go unrecognized.
"You call a company to place an order. Your parents once went on vacation. What you don't know is that the second cousin of the person on the phone was once in a car accident with the son of the person behind the desk who checked your parents into the hotel where they stayed while on vacation".
"You sit next to a stranger on a flight. Neither of you has any idea that your fathers were in basic military training together. Not only that but another person on the flight is the daughter of one of the cooks that was in the mess hall".
"You are at the counter in a restaurant. There is one other person at the counter. A waitress takes both of your orders. What none of you know is that all three of you have the same initials".
"You buy a used car. You don't know that the car has had two owners. The first was one of your teachers in elementary school and the most recent owner was the assistant manager of the grocery store where you once worked".
"Two elderly men are in a hospital room. The nurse notices that their dates of birth are only one day apart, the one was born the day after the other. But what none of them know is that their mothers shared the same hospital room when giving birth to the two of them. Furthermore their two mothers had the same birthday".
"You have a flat tire. Someone stops and offers to help. You introduce yourselves with your first names. What neither of you knows is that both of you have the same last name, although you are not related".
Financial transactions today are mostly done electronically. But what about when cash and coins were used? Can you imagine all of the unknown coincidences involving bills and coins? You might have a coin and not know that one of your favorite celebrities, or a relative that lives far away, or a notorious criminal that you read about, once used the same coin. A 40 year old might use a coin, not knowing that they had used the same coin at 16 and again at 29.
There are also what we could call "reverse coincidences". Here are some examples.
"You call a company but no record is made of your call. You later want to get back to that same person you talked to, but don't remember their name. You are told that there are thirty people answering phones. In trying to get that first person back on the line you have to go through all of the operators and the very last one is the one that you talked to on the first call".
"A company has 355 workers. The computer system is set to send each worker a greeting on their birthday. It is noticed that, even though there are almost as many workers as there are days in a year, no two workers have the same birthday".
Not all coincidences are significant. These are some minor coincidences.
"You go to look at cars at an auto dealership. You don't know it but the salesperson who helps you has the same tiles in their bathroom that you do".
"A litter of puppies is born and are sold as pets. You get to know someone and find out that they had the same breed of dog when they were a child as you did. What neither of you know is that your dogs were from the same litter".
I define a coincidence as "a random apparent reduction in complexity". A reverse coincidence is a random apparent increase in complexity. It is complexity and movement in the society around us that increases coincidences, by increasing the number that could occur. An increase in population increases the potential number of steps in coincidences, thereby decreasing the value of the average coincidence, but increases the total value of those that do occur.
Since coincidences represent a random apparent reduction in complexity, the more information there is in a coincidence the less it's value because there will be more steps. Never having a coincidence would actually be a coincidence in itself because it would represent the most ordered information state. This means that coincidences must occur, they are by far the rule rather than the exception, but the more that occur the less the value of each one.
It doesn't make sense that any changes that are made to society would increase or decrease the total value of all coincidences. Higher complexity would increase the total number of coincidences but would decrease the average value of each one, because coincidences would have more steps which would make them less of a coincidence.
This indicates that there must be a Coincidence Constant that averages out to be constant over time. We cannot expect the Coincidence Constant, the number of coincidences multiplied by the value of each, to be constant all the time because that would be a coincidence in itself, like every week in the summer getting exactly the same amount of rainfall.
The value of a coincidence is something that we would have great difficulty putting a number on. The reason is that coincidences are the result of our own perception. To put a number on something it is necessary for us to completely understand it. This means that we would have to be "smarter than ourselves" to put a number on the values of coincidences.
But we do not need to put a number on this Coincidence Constant, which includes reverse coincidences and must remain constant, as the complexity of society changes because increased complexity brings more coincidences, even if not recognized, but decreases the value of each one by increasing the average number of steps. The more steps in the coincidence the more information and, since the definition of a coincidence is a random reduction in complexity, this decreases the value of the coincidence.
Society contains a certain level of information. We could express that level as a horizontal line across a sheet of graph paper, with the area below the line representing the complexity, or amount of information, in the society. But it would be better represented as a diagonal line dividing the paper in half, from the lower left to the upper right corner.
Very rarely do we see the complexity of the society just as it is. Sometimes we see it on the left side of the paper, with the complexity appearing as less than it actually is. This side represents coincidences, with the greater coincidences being toward the edge of the paper and the lesser ones toward the middle.
The right side of the paper represents reverse coincidences, also with the greater ones toward the edge of the paper and the lesser ones toward the middle. But the coincidences and reverse coincidences average out to the center of the line, which is the same point as would be the horizontal line dividing the paper in half. This represents the Coincidence Constant.
3) THE CYCLE OF REPETITION
Here is something that really should have a name. Has there ever been a story that you have truly never read?
If you have read any story, the writer of that story had previously read stories that you have never read, and the writers of those stories had read other stories that you have never read, and so on. The concepts and patterns of those stories found their way into the stories that you did read.
There are a limited number of patterns, concepts and, details that can go in stories. This means that there are only a finite number of possible stories, and so after reading a certain number of stories you can say with at least some truth that you have read all possible stories. This is what I mean by "indirect reading".
In fact, all designs from buildings to houses to cars are affected, to some degree, by the stories that the designer has read, and the designs that the designer has seen. This includes television, the themes of Shakespeare are to be found all over modern television. It is true that there are a vast number of stories, but also true that there is a vast amount of similarity between the stories.
There is practically nothing that is completely unfamiliar, just rearrangements of all possible themes, settings, concepts and, details. Every time you read an article, get to know someone, are taught by someone, or look at a product that was designed by someone, you are in some way affected by the stories which that person has read or the movies that they have seen, and all of the designs that they have been exposed to.
For example, in every corner of western society you can see the patterns found in the Bible. So many scenes in stories resemble scenes in the Bible. Have you ever noticed the resemblance between a psalm in the Bible and a modern rock song, except that the psalms are about God and the songs are usually about romance?
Western legal systems and constitutions resemble the detailed lists of commands and procedures in the Torah, the first five books of the Old Testament. The legal descriptions of properties, for mortgage and tax purposes, closely resembles the parceling out of well-defined territories after the Israelites had settled their promised land.
The sites of modern capital cities of settled lands, such as Washington, Ottawa and, Canberra, were selected due to their central locations between colonies or settlements in the same way as the Israelites chose Jerusalem as a central capital. Notice how the U.S. Civil War resembles the split into the rival kingdoms of Judah and Israel after the death of King Solomon.
The journeys of explorers from Europe to all parts of the world very much resemble St. Paul's three missionary voyages in the New Testament. The taming of the U.S. and Canadian west, and the parceling into states and provinces, seems like something right out of the Book of Joshua. Even the lengthy lists of screen credits at the end of movies is very much like Paul's list of credits at the end of the Book of Romans.
Many western historical events look very much like scenes out of the Bible. When power was being sorted out in 1930s Germany, the Nazis invited the leaders of the Brownshirts (Storm Troopers) to a meeting and then slaughtered them exactly like Jehu did with the prophets of Baal.
The unfortunate glamorization of violence on modern television also has some roots in the Bible, with the recounting of the exploits of the mightiest of King David's warriors in the Second Book of Samuel.
Both sides of the economic spectrum today can be seen in the Bible. The adoration of wealth in the glories of King Solomon's Temple, in the First Book of the Kings, as well as capitalism in the harsh parable of the talents (or pounds) used by Jesus. The support of workers and opposition to exploitation by the wealthy in the Book of James, the parable of the rich young man in the Gospels and Jesus overturning the tables of the money changers in the Temple.
Repetition of patterns can be seen in a nation's history. This means that even if you do not know all about history you can watch it being repeated in the current news. The 2013 removal of Egyptian president Morsi, after the 2011 overthrow of long-time leader Mubarak, is actually a throwback to ancient times.
In ancient times, the Old Kingdom of ancient Egypt, when the pyramids and Sphinx were constructed, deteriorated and lost control until order was restored by force. This brought in the Middle Kingdom. The country was eventually ruled by Semitic foreigners, known as the Hyksos, until their expulsion brought in the New Kingdom.
In modern times, the army restoring order by force, after both the Mubarak and Morsi overthrows, reflects back to order being restored after the end of the Old Kingdom. The bringing in of the elected Morsi government, after the overthrow of Mubarak, but then it's removal in a coup by the military, represents the rebellion that removed the Hyksos.
The same pattern can be seen in Iran. I have always thought that the overthrow of the Shah in 1979, to form an Islamic republic led by Ayatollah Khomeini, is a throwback to the country's original conquest after the advent of Islam. The shah represented pre-Islamic Persia, in fact he held a lavish 1971 anniversary celebration of it in the ruins of Persepolis. The 1979 revolution was reenacting the coming of Islam to the country.
History tends to repeat itself and, even if you have never studied it much, you can see it being repeated on the daily news.
The Cycle of Repetition keeps going around and around. The Cycle of Repetition in which we live would be much more apparent to us if there was some way we could see it from outside. So while there are many books that you have never directly read there are really none that you have never indirectly read.
4) ART, MUSIC AND, SPORTS
The role of those human endeavors that are not the "real world", particularly art, music and, sports, is they transmit patterns while allowing us the chance to work out the complexity that is then applied to the "real world". It is much like how children's games work out how the "real world" actually works.
Meanwhile, art and music is pleasing to us because we are more complex than our inanimate surroundings and is a reflection to us of our own higher level of complexity. Art and music can be defined as a form of mathematical expression using graphics or sound, in that the position of every element is defined relative to every other element. Again, we are imposing our higher level of complexity on our inanimate surroundings.
Before we had the complex modern technology, science and, society that came with the Renaissance, we had to work out and learn to use that complexity through art. Realist painting and sculpture had to come before modern design. As for the operation of modern society, we had to produce complex paintings, with all of the many parts "working together" to convey the meaning of the painting, before we could produce the "real world" constitutions that govern how society operates.
We certainly could not have the complex circuit boards in modern electronic devices without first working out the complexity in painting. Every part of the circuit must support all of the other parts, just as in the painting.
Surrealistic, or non-realistic, artwork gets us thinking outside of our vision, or "outside the box", and this gets us in the frame of mind to invent, to come up with new ideas, and to discover things that we cannot see with our vision.
Many early paintings and sculptures involved great anatomical detail. We had to become intimately familiar with anatomy through art before we could effectively apply it to medicine. In the same way we had to master rendering buildings, and their spatial relationship to each other, before we could have modern architecture.
Likewise the rhythm of poetry, and of music, is reflected in the rhythm of machines. Have you ever noticed the similarity between a song and the operation of an internal combustion engine?
The musical instruments, percussion, string, wind and, singing, work together in exactly the same way as the several systems of the engine. A song is usually led by a singer just as the thrust-generating system is the primary system of the engine. This is supported by the cooling, lubrication and, charging systems in exactly the same way that the musical instruments support the singer.
The engine's valves have to open, and spark plugs have to fire, according to a rhythm that is identical to that of a song. We definitely could not have had cars without music. We had to work out the complexity of the engine in songs first.
Any machine with moving parts, the gears in a clock for example, must work together like "clockwork", but this precise rhythm is just like that of a song and it was through music that we worked out the complexity that made machines with many moving parts possible.
Sports is where we work out the complexity and strategy involved when there is opposition to what we are trying to do. Ball games against a similar team in a different uniform have always been used as preparation for, and to work out the patterns of, warfare. On another level, games like chess have been used to work out the strategies that might be involved in war, just as card games allow the working out of strategies that might be applicable to either war or business in peacetime.
As always, as the old saying goes, "Art imitates life imitates art". We are at a higher level of complexity than our inanimate surroundings and it is where we can master and work out that complexity before applying it to the "real world". That is the purpose of art, music and, sports.
5) THE PERFECTION OF TECHNOLOGY
I have noticed something about technology that brings about a concept that we could call "perfection".
What I notice about technology is that when an element of technology, such as a car, radio, computer or, phone, is first introduced it is necessary to know how it works in order for the average user to use it. As the technology develops, with improvements made to it, it becomes less and less necessary for the average user to know how it works in order to use it. What I mean by perfection is not being "perfect", in the strict sense of the word, but having reached the point where there is no need to understand at all how it works in order for the average user to use it.
This concept of perfection is useful because it tells us how much room for improvement any element of technology has left. If it is necessary to know how it works for the average user to use it then it still has room for improvement. When it has reached perfection then the average user will have no need at all to understand how it works.
An example of something that has reached perfection is the calendar. We know that the calendar is based on the rotation of the earth as it revolves around the sun. But it is not necessary to understand this in order to use the calendar.
Mathematics is a realm that has reached perfection. What I mean by that is we must completely understand something in order to describe it with mathematics. But science is not a realm that has reached perfection because there are unsolved mysteries in science and we can express in words, rather than numbers, what we do not yet completely understand.
Perfection just means having no more room for improvement. It shows up in how much we need to understand something in order to use it. If it has reached perfection then there is no reason for the average user to understand it at all.
If anyone remembers the early days of personal computers, the C, colon, backslash days of DOS, you can see what I mean. This was known as the C Prompt, C:\. The user typed in a command after the C Prompt.
The user had to remember that the main hard drive of the computer was the C: Drive because that made it third in line in the boot sequence. The A: Drive was reserved for a floppy disk drive. The reason for this is that, if the computer failed to boot in the usual way from the C: Drive, it could be booted by inserting emergency boot floppy disks into the A: Drive which had the necessary boot sequence. The B: Drive was reserved for another insertible disk drive. If there was a secondary hard drive it was the D: Drive.
Fortunately those days are long gone and users today need to know none of this to use a computer, or especially a phone. But we can see that computers and related devices have not yet reached perfection because it is still helpful to know how the device works for the average user.
All improvements to technology go in the direction of making it less necessary to know how it works. I cannot think of a technological improvement that has made it more necessary to understand how it works, unless something has been added to it.
If it is helpful for the average user to know how it works then an element of technology has not yet reached perfection. Software and especially AI are major steps towards perfection.
High-level computer languages that are compiled make it much less necessary for a programmer to understand how the processor works but still do not bring the computer close to perfection.
What about radios? It used to be necessary to string a piece of wire as an antenna. That was because longer wavelengths were used in the early days. The shorter wavelengths that came into use later use much shorter antennas but can only be used in a line of sight. Shorter wavelengths can carry much more information, and thus higher quality.
The development of solid state electronics, based on chips instead of vacuum tubes, were a step forward so now the user doesn't have to remember how the radio requires tubes for detection and amplification because tubes have to be replaced periodically but transistors last the life of the radio.
In the early days of telephone a caller had to dial the operator and tell her who they wanted to be connected to. The operator had a pile of cables, each of which had a connector at each end. The operator would plug one end into the caller's connection and the other into the connection of the recipient of the call. At the end of the call the recipient would call the operator again and request removal of the cable. The user clearly had to know all about how the phone and it's system worked.
I will leave it up to you to decide how much room for improvement phones have left, keeping in mind that today's phones are computers as well as phones.
Cars are somewhat different from the above technical elements in that they are moving. With mechanical parts in motion that naturally makes auto parts susceptible to wear, and requiring replacement. This makes it much more necessary to understand how a car works, relative to the elements of technology referenced above.
To use a standard transmission it is necessary to understand how the transmission operates but automatic transmissions have eliminated this need. It is not absolutely necessary to know at all how a car works in order to drive it, other than the basic controls like ignition, steering and brakes. But, since cars are inevitably subject to the wear that comes with moving parts, a vital part of being a user is continuous monitoring for signs of malfunction or breakdown.
While it is not really necessary for a driver to understand how each part of the car works, but it is helpful and it is necessary to understand how the different parts of the car work together. This means that cars today are nowhere near perfection, despite how far they have come, and still have a lot of room for improvement left.
6) THE NATURE OF FAIRNESS
Fairness is very important to us. It is the basic principle behind all codes of law, and how we ideally interact with each other. But I cannot see that it has been broken down into exactly what it is. I have broken fairness down into four principles.
6a) THE LEAST PRINCIPLE
An ideal example of the Least Principle is the express line in supermarket checkouts. In most supermarkets a shopper who is buying a certain number of items or fewer, typically ten, have their own line or lines at supermarket checkouts.
The reason is fairness. If a shopper is buying only a few groceries then it will not take long for them to be rung up at the checkout. It is unfair for someone buying only a few groceries to have to wait for others to be rung up who are buying a lot of groceries.
That is why most supermarkets have at least one express line. It facilitates the least waiting relative to the number of items a shopper is buying.
If two students have to stay after school, so that the teacher can go over something different with each of them, the one that will require the least time should go first. This will facilitate the least waiting, relative to the amount of time required. That is why it is called the Least Principle.
6b) THE GREATER GOOD
This counterbalances the Least Principle. Fairness is not written in stone, it is a matter of perspective. Human nature must be taken into consideration.
If we strictly followed the Least Principle it would mean that if there was two people, one with no money and one with a lot of money, it would be only fair for the one with a lot of money to share it with the one with no money.
But if everyone had to share whatever wealth they had then what would be the point of working? People require incentive to work and that incentive is the money that they earn. Why should anyone work hard if they will only have to share their earnings? This means that some people will inevitably have more wealth than others.
In the long term, the principal of the Greater Good will mean more wealth, on the average, for all, because it provides incentive, while the Least Principle is more short-term where incentive is not a factor.
As a counterbalance to the Least Principle, which is the fundamental principle of fairness, we could call this the "Most Principle".
6c) BALANCING OUT
This is a long-term modifier of the short-term Least Principle. If there are two shoppers in the supermarket, both buying the same number of items, is it fair that one has to wait longer in the checkout line because the line that they are in is moving more slowly than the one the other is in?
Of course it isn't. The fair thing to do would be for the supermarket to have just one line, and then the next person in line go to the next available cashier. This is what some markets do have, the trouble is that it takes up floor space and will thus add to the cost of groceries.
But standing in line is a repetitive thing. We stand in lines all our lives. The Balancing Out principle is that, just by chance, sometimes we will err and choose the line that takes the longest but it will balance out, over time, because sometimes we will make the right choice of the fastest line.
6d) THE PARADISE PRINCIPLE
Sometimes fairness is just beyond our ability to implement.
Two children are crossing a street. A car is trying to evade the police and comes around the corner at high speed. One of the children is killed but the other is uninjured. It that fair to the family of the child that was killed? Of course it isn't.
Two families send their sons off to war, one is killed but the other isn't. Is that fair to the family of the one that was killed? Of course it isn't.
There are two siblings, one gets a hereditary disease but the other doesn't. Is that fair to the one that got the disease? Of course it isn't.
It looked as if it might rain. Two people are walking, one brought an umbrella but the other didn't. The one with the umbrella doesn't get wet but the other does. Is this fair to the person that got wet? Actually it is fair because the other person had the common sense to bring an umbrella but the one that got wet didn't.
We cannot completely implement freedom, making it so that everything is always fair. In fact, that could be the definition of a paradise. Where everything is always fair. It would be a higher-level paradise if everything was always perfect, but it would be at least a first-level paradise if everything was always fair.
That is why I call this the "Paradise Principle".
7) SYMBOLISM
Just a reminder of how important symbolism can be.
America started east of the Appalachians but it ended up stretching from the Atlantic to Pacific Oceans, from "coast to coast". The inevitability of reaching the opposite coast is referred to as "Manifest Destiny".
But the reason it was inevitable is the symbolism of the flag. The stripes stretch from "coast to coast".
America is also, at the time of this writing, the only nation to have put humans on the moon. Of course, a number of nations have stars on the flag but America has more than any other nation. This seems to have made it inevitable that Americans would land on the moon first.
But the flag has a downside too. The stripes resemble prison bars and America has a high proportion of people in prison.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_the_United_States#/media/File:Flag_of_the_United_States.svg
I believe that Britain's flag helped in discovery of sub-atomic particles. All three components of atoms, electrons, protons and, neutrons were all discovered in England. But the flag resembles a nucleus at the center with electron orbitals passing over it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Union_Jack#/media/File:Flag_of_the_United_Kingdom.svg
The symbol of Canada is the Maple Leaf. There is one disadvantage. Maple leaves fall off the tree in the winter. Emulating the national symbol snowbirds from Canada go south during the winter, to Florida, Mexico and the Caribbean, taking hundreds of millions of Canadian dollars with them, at least before the pandemic started. Maybe more money would stay in Canada if it had an evergreen tree as it's symbol.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_Canada#/media/File:Flag_of_Canada_(Pantone).svg
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The symbol of Communism was a red star and, sure enough, the Soviet Union was the first nation to put a satellite in orbit and then a man in space.
But another symbol of the Soviet Union was the hammer and sickle, representing industry and agriculture. Have you ever noticed that, true to the national symbol, the Soviet Union and it's Communism held together as long as the bulk of workers were employed either in agriculture or heavy industry, but then came apart when that stage had passed?
Instead of the hammer and sickle would it still be together if it had the computer mouse and smart phone as it's symbol?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_the_Soviet_Union#/media/File:Flag_of_the_Soviet_Union.svg
Could it be that America has the crime rate that it does because it's national symbol, the bald eagle, is a predator with razor-sharp claws? What if the buffalo had been the symbol of America? We have a ruthless predator as our national symbol but then send people to prison for conducting themselves like the national symbol.
Could it be that so many people have, in the past, immigrated from Britain because it's national symbol is the lion and it is doubtful that a lion would want to live in the drizzle and fog of Britain. What if the native fox was the symbol of Britain?
Could it be that part of the reason for so many wars is that nations tend to choose vicious wild predators as their national symbols? What if we had peaceful herbivores as our national symbols?
8) THE PARADOX OF KNOWLEDGE
We generally consider having knowledge to be a good thing. But have you ever wondered if knowledge can be a disadvantage, if there can be such a thing as "knowing too much"?
9) IS HUMANITY ALIVE?
Have you ever wondered if humanity, meaning all human beings, is alive? I don't mean each human being that is alive, I mean humanity as a whole.
We see both a human as alive, and also every cell in their body as alive. But if the cell could think it would see itself as alive, along with all of the other cells it works together with, but not the body as a whole. All of humanity, in our interconnected world, works together as one in just the same way that all of the cells in a human body work together as one. Just as individual cells die and are replaced, individual people die but humanity as a whole goes on.
We consider the human body, as well as each cell within it, as alive but not humanity as a whole, even though the two relationships are virtually the same. The exception being that humans are not physically connected to one another.
But is this just a matter of perspective? We are part of this structure of humanity ourselves, and so do not have an unbiased perspective. If any of the cells in our bodies could think they would be concerned with their own lives and tasks. While they would see other cells as also alive it would be very difficult for the cell to see the human body as a whole of being alive.
We can sense other humans as being alive and we know that their component cells are alive because we know how our bodies work. But then humanity as a whole must somehow be considered as alive. If we don't consider humanity as a whole to be alive it must be because the perspective does not exist to view humanity as a whole as alive, but that really makes it no less alive.
Just because there is no perspective to recognize humanity as a whole as alive cannot mean that it isn't alive. Consider the example of numbers. We might say that a number has no real existence until it is manifested. There is no such thing as the number six that we can go to see or hold in our hands. But the number is manifested whenever we have six of something.
Since the universe is finite, but numbers are not, there must be numbers that are not manifested by anything. Yet by all of the rules of mathematics these unmanifested numbers still exist. Indeed a number must exist before it is manifested. In the same way how can it be that each of our cells is alive, and we are alive, but yet humanity as a whole is not alive?
What about our internal organs? Is your stomach and your liver alive? If the individual cells are alive, and your body as a whole is alive, then shouldn't your internal organs be considered as alive in themselves? You might answer that they can be considered as alive, but only as part of a larger whole.
Now consider that each human being is alive but very few people today could produce all that they need to live, considering the work that they do. Couldn't we say that, like our internal organs, we are alive but only as part of a larger whole? Then the larger whole, which is all of humanity, must be alive.
Human civilizations are said to rise, reach their peak, and then decline, in exactly the same way as an individual human being. But why should a civilization decline once it has the advantage of dominance? Doesn't it make sense that the civilization is actually alive even though we, due to our perspective, are capable only of seeing the individual humans that compose the civilization as being alive?
The more globally interconnected we become, through modern transportation, communication and, the internet, the more all of humanity matures as a living thing. Humanity, as a whole, fits all definitions of a living thing, with the exception that humans are not physically connected to one another, like the cells of the body, but that is not necessary with the way we can communicate and the modern global economy certainly functions like a living thing.
Just like any living thing humanity sometimes gets sick. Wars resemble autoimmune diseases, which causes the body to attack itself. An economic downturn operates in much the same way, to humanity or a nation as a whole, as a human getting an illness and then recovering from it.
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