A Million Dollars!

The other day, I was thinking about what it takes to give selflessly to others and the mechanics and motivations of generosity. The folllowing thought crossed my mind:  

Let's say there's a man who has a million dollars to spend on whatever he wants. So he decides to spend 50,000 Dollars on charity or buys a gift for someone close to him for this amount of money.

Then there is another man or woman who has 1000 Dollars to spend on whatever he or she wants. This person decides to spend 200 dollars on charity or buys a gift for someone close to him or her for this amount of money.

Now, if we do the math, the first person spent only 5% of their available disposable income on charitable giving, whilst the second person spent 20% of their disposable income.

So, who's the more generous one?

It's just a thought and a simple scenario at that, which I'm sure evokes many different views. I'm sure there are lots of different scenarios, however, it would be great to hear your thoughts, do you agree? or disagree?

Please Comment.

and remember........

Be Extraordinary, Because it's Bloody Boring Being Ordinary! 

How is the human mind similar to a relational database?

As amazing as the human brain is, we can draw parallels between the brain and the workings of a relational database. Both store data, both have subsections, divisions and partitions and both link relational inter-dependent data together to form logical conclusions and outputs. These outputs manifest themselves as our actions, our thoughts, our opinions, our words and in fact, our relationship with everything that we interact with. Here is a more detailed explanation:

Anything that we do or say that is expressed in any way can be considered as an output of the relational aspect of our brain making connections between different forms of information. This is the basis of learning, of art, of science and more or less of everything that we do. Also, if you really think about it, taking the example of art, what is art anyway? It is simply a manifestation, a realization or materialization into reality of how the artist’s mind has connected different information and related it together just like a database would if it were allowed to do so by the programmer.

Yet, some connections made by the mind may not seem logical as in the paintings of Salvadore Dali, but that is only because everyone does not see logic in the same way. Nevertheless, we admire and respect the work of such great thinkers because we admire the unique way their minds make relational connections between what they perceive and what they produce from such perception.

But what about someone we consider to be completely logical such as an engineer or doctor. Could such people be considered artists? Why so? Because if an engineer creates a new design or a doctor creates a new cure, then surely their minds too will have had to make relational connections between disparate data or information to come to an output which is manifested as the new design or the new medical cure. So what makes the doctor or engineer, both also involved in the process of creating any different from the artist, other than the fact that they are simply working in different fields? (Here I am assuming a doctor involved in independent research or an engineer with the freedom to design new products).  

Therefore, if we look at the human mind as a relational database, we can start to understand how the structure of logic is formed at its very fundamental level and how information that we take in using our five senses, although totally unconnected at the point of inception, eventually becomes connected within the neural network of the mind. The brain is therefore able to intricately analyze and connect disparate and abstract data to form coherent logic structures, which being infinitely different in their permutations, enable us to make sense of the World around us also in infinitely different, yet equally logical ways. This is somewhat of a paradox right? But somehow, it all works like clockwork

The brain does this automatically non-stop every day for the duration of our lifetimes. Yet we still ask the question, what makes our mind different from the workings of a very complex relational database, which just like the mind, can connect huge amounts of different data in different ways to produce either the same output every time or different outputs every time? The only difference I believe is who makes the rules about how the connections are made - think about it :-)

Here is a video providing a more detailed explanation of my ideas on art:

Here is a link on the how Sigmund Freud's ideas influenced the work of some famous abstract artists:

The Subconscious Mind and Surrealism

Enjoy and remember...............................

Be Extraordinary, Because it's Bloody Boring Being Ordinary!

 

The psychology of men who send people to war

What kind of a man does it take to send another man to war to face certain death or indeed psychological trauma from which he may never recover? From which he may lose so much of his sense of self-worth, that he may one day, if not killed in the war itself, then decide to take his own life (as has happened to so many war veterans over the years like those from Vietnam and more recently, the Gulf War(s) (See links).

I think, it takes a complete disassociation with basic human emotion, a complete abstraction from compassion and above all, a complete personal denial that other men are human at all. Such is the case with any war politician who can happily send his countrymen to war justified by false or non -existent evidence. A contrived war, a manufactured war, a war to last for over 10 or even 20 long years, or maybe even a never-ending war to take the lives of the noble to serve some esoteric, yet far from noble purpose.

I'm not talking about real wars which serve to fight tyranny, dictatorship and oppression. I'm talking about wars contrived for financial or political gain. Wars that serve no other purpose than to fill the pockets of a small group of individuals or perhaps to spread their political influence. To carry out such heinous acts really takes someone who either cannot feel emotion at all or is emotionally dead, or perhaps can feel emotion, but does not see his fellow man as a man at all, but simply an expendable resource.

There are such people, whose heritage breeds a separate race to us mere mortals. A race devoid of understanding of what it is to be a man who loves his family and country and will give his life for them, believing he is fighting for a just and noble cause. A race that sees others outside its own select group to be simply fodder to feed the war machine, a race that does not view those others as fellows of the same kind and therefore feels nothing of their pain, for their pain does not exist, cannot exist, as of course, they too must be emotionless. Like them, how could anyone be any different?

 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/feb/01/us-military-suicide-epidemic-veteran

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/09/us/suicides-eclipse-war-deaths-for-us-troops.html?_r=0

 

 

Is there Logic in the idea of Re-incarnation?

This one took me some time to figure out, but here goes:

Many faiths believe that there exists such a thing as reincarnation, whereby a soul leaves one body and enters another to create a new being. This, of course, brings into question the existence of a soul in the first place and more importantly perhaps, it brings us to question what is the soul? I would be very interested to hear your opinion on these two questions. However, for now, here is my view:

I have mentioned in many of my videos, the idea that at the very sub-atomic level, it is virtually impossible to distinguish between particles and waves. For example, light behaves as a series of particles (photons) when studied using one specific methodology, yet it also behaves as a series of waves when studied from a different perspective. (please Google ‘the dual nature of light’ or ‘wave particle duality’ for a more comprehensive explanation of the experiments on light carried out by Sir Issac Newton and Thomas Young which seem to paradoxically show that light exists in both forms). Similarly, when we consider the electron, one of the most commonly acknowledged scientific findings when attempting to establish the speed and position and of an electron at a given point in space-time is that only the position of the electron or its speed can ever be known at any one time. The two (speed and position) however, can never be known simultaneously. Again, this points to the dual nature of an electron which can behave both as a wave (if you establish its speed) and a particle (if you establish its position in space-time). These scientific paradoxes provide some interesting implications for the existence and nature of the soul.   

How so? Firstly, let’s consider what we have so far from a scientific and logical standpoint. With the above analysis, it is impossible to deny that everything, absolutely everything, including you and I, are nothing more than pure energy, because as we established above, when we get to the very subatomic level, everything is just pure energy. There is no further way of subdividing subatomic particles, because when we get to such a minute level, we simply end up in the realm of wave (or energy) physics. Now, before going any further, as I always say, please don’t just believe me. Please do look up the scientific proof by carrying out the above searches yourself.

Now, if we are all pure energy and energy can neither be created nor can it be destroyed (again a basic scientific principle that I would advise you to look up if you are not aware of it already), then all that happens to us, all of us, is that all our energy is simply transformed from one form to another. Therefore, each of us and in fact, everything in the universe, which constitutes pure energy, was always in existence in one form or another and always will continue to be in existence for eternity (is eternity / infinity a reality?, well, that’s another debate, for another time). Basically, this means that we have always existed in one form or another as living or non-living matter. (What is the difference between living and non – living matter? Very little, I believe, however, this is another debate for another day).

Now, the soul can be considered to be the basis of all that is living, for as we often hear, every living creature has a soul. So what is the soul? Essentially it is the one thing that makes me, me and makes you, you. It is basically the unique energy set that has come together to make us what we are. Each of us can be considered to have a unique soul and equally, each of us can be considered to have a unique energy signature which is our unique set of subatomic energies, put together exactly in a specific way that is unique exclusively to us. So logically speaking, we can say that the soul is the specific concentration of energy that constitutes a living being. It is the driving force, the final piece in the puzzle, the ‘je ne sais quoi’, in fact, the critical factor that makes all the difference. Thus, if this unique energy ‘grouping or signature’ did not exist, then neither would the living creature and therefore, neither would the soul of that creature. So far, so logical, right?

Now we can ask the interesting questions. Firstly, do we and our souls exist? Yes, of course, because our energy signature or fingerprint exists as a manifestation of a person or other living creature and the soul is very much that unique energy signature. Next, what is the soul? I believe that, if you and I are nothing more than a concentration of waves which are themselves the natural manifestation of pure energy, then reincarnation is the reformation of that energy to form a new being and that, my friends, is the nature of the soul and indeed of the transference of the soul from one being to another.

In fact, we could say that it is the energy signature itself that is the exact description of the soul and it is this energy signature that is constantly undergoing transformation and transference, thereby causing the phenomenon of reincarnation. This is logical, for as we said earlier, energy is never created or destroyed, so it must go somewhere right?

On a more physical level, the constituent chemicals and minerals that constitute a body are broken down to their constituent parts (by fire, when an individual is cremated, or back into the ground when an individual is buried) and ultimately they must go somewhere, right?

Taking the example of what the Hindus say, that you may return as a different creature in another lifetime, based on how you lived this life, I believe is a plausible possibility, because after all, if you are cremated (as most Hindus are), then your constituent chemicals, become dispersed and indistinguishably become at one with the air that ultimately, every living creature breathes and so therefore, does your energy signature. So your constituent parts will ultimately be consumed by other beings to ultimately form new beings. If this is not re-incarnation then what is? Similarly, if you are buried - and assuming you were not buried in a non-corrosive, chemically inert vessel - then ultimately, part of the constituent and inherent energy signature of the chemicals and minerals that make up your body and therefore your soul, will equally be re-incarnated within creatures that consume those chemicals and minerals during the decomposition and assimilation of your body by the earth. During this assimilation, your unique energy signature is equally assimilated, altered and transferred to make up the energy signature of other creatures, resulting once again in reincarnation. Your soul is effectively re-incarnated within different living creatures every time that energy shift takes place. So if during this lifetime you had an energy signature similar to that of a particular animal or plant, then it is feasible to imagine that if that energy signature does not change too significantly once your body breaks up into it's constituent parts, the energy signature of you, being similar to that of another animal or plant, my then actually re-materialize to form that plant or animal or something very similar.

So, for me, re-incarnation is nothing more than transference of energy from one form to another. Based on this logic, therefore, it is very likely, that if in this lifetime, your way of life emulated the way of life of, say a particular creature, then your energy signature will equally match the energy signature of that creature and the natural tendency of your energy signature will be to re-form as that creature or into something approximating that creature. Of course this point delves perhaps more than necessary into a specific way of philosophical thinking, combining philosophy with theoretical physics, nevertheless it is an interesting point to consider. Nevertheless, this logic is the main point of this short article, postulating that reincarnation does exist and is real, it is just a matter of how you look at the logic of it ;-)

Interestingly, this logic is explained in ancient Vedic scriptures and has been understood for thousands of years by many Far Eastern Scholars, Scientists and Philosophers. Yet, in our modern, fast-paced society, we very often see only the surface of the true underlying logic. Today, we only see slices and cross-sections of the full truth and based on these slices of information, we attribute all subjects concerned with deeper questions regarding who and what we are, to the realms of mythology and religious speculation. This is why I believe that in the history of mankind, there has already existed a far deeper knowledge of science than what is perceived by modern science today. The underlying questions and the motivations of ancient science were different to modern science, for ancient science sought to answer a different set of questions to those we ask of modern science.

Maybe, just maybe, the ancient Vedic scholars knew about the dual nature of light. Maybe they knew about the nature of electronic motion and maybe they understood all too well, particle-wave theory. But here, I have tried to explain how they used this knowledge in a very different way to answer very different questions to our modern questions. If we use our science today for one thing and the ancients used the same science for a completely different thing, yet with equally effective results, then how can we possibly ignore and discard such a fundamental area of research? It’s a little bit like having only half of something, like a chair without legs, a home without electricity or a car without tyres.

This takes me on to the point that it is not just that a civilization needs to be advanced in its science, which we might consider ourselves to be, compared to earlier times, but it is also a matter of how we use our science and the questions we ask of it that is equally important. In ancient times I believe, advanced science was used to explain the fundamentals of life whilst today, we use and prioritise our science to improve our lives. Whilst both are important, the imperative thing to realise is that both uses of advanced science and the questions asked of it are equally vital for our survival.

 

This is perhaps why, in order for us to understand what we are today, we need to first understand the deeper and more penetrative logic of what existed before us.

In this way, how do we define our science? (This will be the subject of another post).

Until Then,

Be Extraordinary, It’s Bloody Boring being Ordinary !