Christian morality

I put it out that the Roman Empire was steeped in inequality and decadence, somewhat like today. Somehow a minor poverty cult spread that promised a wonderful afterlife so long as you stayed skint. Christianity spread across the world. As Tuchman explained: "The Christian attitude towards commerce....held that money was evil, that according to st Augustine 'business is in itself evil,' that no profit beyond a minimum necessary to support the dealer was avarice, that to make money out of money by charging interest on a loan was the sin of usury, that buying goods wholesale and selling them unchanged at a higher retail price was immoral and condemned by cannon law, that, in short, st Jeromes dictum was final; 'A man who is a merchant can seldom if ever please god.' Jews were brought in, reluctantly as moneylenders and treated badly for doing this dirty work. In a cultural sense I admit to a degree of Christian morality here. I could never get used to barter while in morocco and would struggle with the concept of products having a variable price dependent on the customers gullibility. Something the morrocans saw no wrong in. My father had many sayings, one was 'Never a borrower nor a lender be'. Something he stuck to. It has crossed my mind, in the light of the collapse of global capitalism starting with the sub prime mortgage thing, that he may well have had it right. I can also imagine his reasoning continuing to anti semitism at this juncture. Nevertheless, it is likely, if we are to real in the worst excesses of capitalism and get over this recession that we will need a cultural shift as significant and widespread as the move toward christianity was. How this can happen now that few believe in the supernatural, the mind or soul continuing after the deth of the body, it is hard to imagine. Minor moral shifts to recycling, locally sourced food etc. is taking place in middle class circles even as the rope ladder of social mobility is being realed in. Interestingly the recent ReThink debate shown and still available on BBC I player pitched Richard Dawkins with Lord Sacks Chief Rabii. Their interaction was fascinating and bore none of the defensiveness of Dawkins usual co debaters. Sacks appears to sincerely love Dawkins and debate and reason. They came across as equals; the Rabii as a man of both reason and faith. It is not the first time it has seemed to me that Judaism is a good point of contact for people like myself and those of faith. After all the Jews were never hoodwinked by the charlatans Mohamed and Christ.

I was just reading about death rates in different societies. Early 21st century western Europe is the safest ever with a rate of 1 homicide in 100,000. 1970s Detroit was particularly bad at 45 per 100,000 per year. In my ongoing thoughts on consciousness and particularly on how it isn't our strongest point, subconscious being quicker at learning pattern, tennis being impossible as a conscious pastime. And of course, once again, we know intuitively far quicker how best to live than all statistics can prove. If politically we need to persuade others to go along with our world view they will want hard evidence so books of statistics help. Though it is clear that peaceful civilisation runs parallel to a loss of faith; the demise of religion running parallel to increased secularism and atheism in western Europe, focusing in holland and Norway, the most atheist and peaceful countries of all time, it doesn't mean that belief in god leads to violence. The two things do, however, reflect more primitive thinking.

Sum it up, Sam

"All of our behaviour can be traced to biological events about which we have no conscious knowledge: this has always suggested that free will is an illusion. For instance, the physiologist Benjamin Libet famously demonstrated that activity in the brains motor regions can be detected some 350 milliseconds before a person feels that he has decided to move. Another lab recently used fMRI data to show that some 'conscious' decisions can be predicted up to 10 seconds before they enter awareness ( long before the preparatory motor activity detected by Libet). Clearly, findings of this kind are difficult to reconcile with the sense that one is the conscious source of ones actions. Notice that distinction between 'higher' and 'lower' systems of the brain gets us no where: for I no more initiate events in executive regions of my prefrontal cortex than I cause the creaturely outbursts of my limbic systems. The truth seems inescapable: I, as the subject of my experience, can not know what I will next think or do until a thought or intention arises; and thoughts and intentions are caused by physical events and mental stirrings of which I am not aware."

Sam Harris -  The Moral Landscape


"Where does conscious reasoning come in to the picture? It is an attempt to justify the choice after it has been made. And it is, after all, the only way we have to explain to other people why we made a particular decision. But given our lack of access to the brain process involved, our justification is often spurious: a post hoc rationalisation, or even confabulation - a 'story' of the confusion between imagination and memory".

Chris Frith


"Introspection offers no clue that our experience of the world around us, and of ourselves within it, depends upon voltage changes and chemical interactions taking place inside our heads. And yet a century and a half of brain science declares it to be so. What will it mean to finally understand the most prized, lamented and intimate features of our subjectivity in terms of neural circuits and information processing?
With respect to our current understanding of the mind, the major religions remain wedded to doctrines that are growing less plausible by the day. While the ultimate relationship between consciousness and matter has not been settled, any naive conception of a soul can now be jettisoned on account of the minds obvious dependency upon the brain. The idea that there might be an immortal soul capable of reasoning, feeling love, remembering life events etc. all the while being independent of the brain, seems untenable given that damage to the relevant neural circuits obliterates these capacities in a living person. Does the soul of a person suffering from total aphasia ( loss of language ability) still think and speak fluently? This s rather like asking whether the soul of ag diabetic produces abundant insulin. The specific character of the minds dependency on the brain also suggests that there can not be a unified self  at work in each one of us. There are simply too many separable components to the human mind, each suseptablle to independent disruption, for there to be a single entity to stand as the rider to the horse.
The shoul doctrine suffers further upheaval in light of the fatal resemblance of the human brain to the brains of other animals. The obvious continuity of our mental powers with those of ostensibly soulless primates raises special difficulties. If the joint ancestors of chimpanzees and humans did not have souls, when did we acquire ours? "

Sam Harris

We are at the beginnings of having conscious steering of our own evolution. But where will we choose to go? We are close to having drugs to alter our neurology. Already we are beginning to medicate against depression and anxiety. If we can drug away the suffering of a parent who has lost a child in an accident wouldn't we be immoral not to help them? But if we can drug away parental responsibility and love there will be those who will pre medicate in speculation at future possible pain. What of these people? A few years ago I heard a debate over whether taking drugs was mere personal choice. I argued that taking drugs could be bad as we are all walking adverts, wearing sandwich boards of how we choose to live. Drugging away ones feelings, ones emotional responses is immoral.

Frosty Jack

Leeds

EBaac

By the end of my schooling I had been banned from all lessons apart from art. They all seemed trivial. Nothing happene d. Maybe an opinion would change or a formulaic problem solved but nothing in physical space changed. In art we made things, altered space, changed the world.
Under Tony Blairs tenure there was a drift toward an idea that manufacture didn't matter. Somehow we could make money from shifting information around. This is an illusion. Somewhere something needs to be done. A house built, a chair made, an engine built. Matter must be shifted, grown or shaped. Top value through trading can be made on top of this but something has to happen in reality. The idea money can endlessly come from thought and talk is wrong. The money creamed off other countries manufacturing is coming to an end. The colonial taxation gone. As a nation we will have to make stuff, to be creative. The creative industries are our second highest gross earning  sector. The financial services sector is top but this is on shaky ground.
Those opposed to art in schools are those who can not see. They can not think of this elementary principle either.

Dirty Leeds

"Coal, the railways, engineering, engine making and tailoring- the five pillars of the thrusting towns commercial success - had sucked in a rag bag of migrant tribes, a collection of shifting, disconnected identities, their bodies blackened by smoke and exploited by wage slavery, their souls polluted by an inhumane existence. Dirty Leeds." Promised Land by Anthony Clarvane

KEEP IT CASUAL: Interview with Cass Pennant

KEEP IT CASUAL: Interview with Cass Pennant: Cass Pennant's story is one that could not have been made up. Raised in the East End of London, he spent the 80s as one of the key figure...

Neuroplasticity

Hawthorn

Cormorants

Drug addicts, bulemics, anorexics, all wrestle with differing threads of their personalities. Bundle theory dates back in philosophy all the way. It is finding fresh converts from modern neuroscience. The bundle of impulses and yearnings, thoughts and desires, are like threads in a rope. Strip them away one by one and you are left with no rope; strip away the threads of a person and there is no self remaining. One thread in all sincerety may believe it will not drink again whilst another thread pulls a different way. The alcoholic, in the chaos of addiction does not have a true self. None of us do. We spin a tale of a hero of high morality and bravery, we tell ourselves we are this person. But a person is no more than the bundle of impulses. 

Isn't this defeatist? Do we have no free will? We can change ourselves. If you have sufficient neuroplasticity you can retrain. You can practice till your patterns change. But we are like stretch armstrong, the childrens toy, warping out to its limits yet returning to its core being. Learning; changing is difficult, very hard work. Too hard for most. Most never need to. Only those who find their nature likely to kill them ever really do. Like recovered addicts, over eaters, under eaters. By middle age most people have become compacted parodies of themselves. They all require rehab. By cutting away at the brain, or drugging it up, psychiatrists can alter peoples patterns but it is incredible how usually the personality will reform, even after severe damage.

Thinking is a corrective system. When our intuitive, animal side lets us down we use reason to put things right.

Chimneys and Twigs

More on previous...

Though people appear to be in control, the architects of their worlds, they are far from it. Consciousness is a small melody in the symphonies of our lives. It paints a story over the true workings. We scurry around, puppets of biology, reacting to stimuli, interacting with other people, post scripting ourselves a convincing story. Our inner narrative, self sustaining in its egocentricity, is an illusory tool for survival.

Hume Quote plus...

For Hume, personal identity is a fiction, we do not exist, we are but a consecution of sensations or perceptions, "I venture to affirm that we are nothing but a bundle or collection of different sensations, succeeding one another with inconceivable rapidity, and in perpetual flux and movement."
This bundle theory is supplemented by the illusion that a self 'owns' this bundle. An inner narrative, peculiar to each of us, a person who we believe we are. The other or true self only exists from the outside. The person who the social group come to know. The inner narrative is in constant reappraisal as we act out of character, "I wasn't myself last night", and have to redraw our belief of who we are. Confident people are more sure of the illusion. Political leaders especially so. If Tony Blairs narrative were to collapse he may recognise his war crimes. The truth would bring suicidal guilt. With the aid of a god delusion his self illusion remains solid. But most of us have far less faith in who we are, in what we believe. It is extremely rare to find a bad person. Though many end up in the judicial courts differing societies create only few have no outer or inner narrative with which to explain their actions. Even crimes of extreme violence, if they are premeditated, are the result of some piece of reasoning. Crimes of passion, most societies recognise as lesser crimes than those of premeditation. Reactive crime can only be the result of our nature. If a Tourette's sufferer swears at you, you accept that there was no crime and take no offence. If a similar, uncontroled movement caused them to lash out and hit you, how do you respond? It was not them but their body. If through some extreme Tourette's like spasm they kill, what then? It would be no more fair than to blame an epileptic for having a fit. We have left the dark days of punishing epileptics behind. So if any act is the result of the brain, whether they 'meant' it or not is of no matter. Some, through no fault of their own, are born with bad brains. Ought we to punish them for their misfortune? There continues to this day a blame game, a punitive reactive system that we really ought to grow past and beyond. If a man has violent outbursts we must restrain them. But punish them? No. And what in the case of Tony Blair? Was it not the random chance of his brain that constructed a narrative of murderous religious zeal, not unlike the Christian god that spoke to Yorkshire Ripper Peter Sutcliffe and told him what to do. It is by his actions that a person should be judged, not his reasoning. A malfunctioning motor neurone system causing tics and an inner narrative are invisible to the outsider and which ever causes the death of someone you love is of little consolation.

Susan Cain asks, in her book on introverts, why this seemingly disadvantageous temperament has not been evolved out of us? The same question remains regarding schizophrenia. A condition that massively reduces life expectancy and hugely increases the chance of suicide is as prevalent in all types of society and also at all times throughout history. Cain suggests the introvert who feels deeper embarrassment, deeper empathic pain, traits that hinder progress, may find that these are traits that are part of a strategy of deeper thought and greater reflection. The extrovert may catch the first worm but catch with little knowledge of how to eat it. The introvert arrives wastes less energy and arrives equped with knowledge gained from having considered their move. So where is the balancing part of the schizoid 'strategy'? Sebastian Faulkes in his epic Human Traces suggests that it maybe a necessary hazard in the development of human consciousness. That we, as a species incur the regular schizoid casualties as a consequence of self awareness. Others have remarked on the historic superstitious belief in the partnership of madness and creativity. It doesn't take long spent in disturbed wings of mental hospitals to put this myth to bed. Or is there a mid point. On the brink of making the wrong connections maybe lies the ground of those who make new connections; fresh ideas for the tribes advance. The recent spat between the evolutionary biologists Wilson and Dawkins over whether the individual or the hive should be seen as the self replicating unit has simmered down expanding our views leaving me to think that it is not really a matter of just selfishly continuing ones own genetic line. Many animals have individuals that are gene linear sacrificial for the group benefit. So if we are accept that schizophrenia is of no advantage to the individual but that it may, at times help the group, how and in what ways can making the wrong connections, hearing voices and generally being subject to delusions be of any use?

This New Truth

In an earlier posting I wrote about watching a kestrel hovering. The bird keeps its eyes in a fixed point in space by flying in to the infinitely complex turbulence of the on coming wind, adjusting its wings and tail in subtle instantaneous reactivity.  Doing this is way beyond any machine so far made by man. If the bird used conscious thought and decision to do this it would have a superior brain to us. We carry out equally complex tasks. Learning to ride a bicycle requires thought and attention yet once learned we can ride and think about other things. Down hill cycling offload can be exhilarating. Our consciousness undergoes a loss of self as our mind must use all attention to cope with the quickly altering and unpredictable terrain. Doing this kind of thing with conscious thought is impractical. Anyone who plays pool will know how thinking about it is a sure fire way to do it badly.
From this we see that our consciousness, the part we brag about, the bit we think puts us above animals in a hierarchy that only our particular species of narcistic primate believes in, is not even our best part. From dance to football, from playing violin to making furniture, from song to painting, our most special moments occur once we lose self consciousness.
The neurological studies on decision making that have shown decisions are taken before we are conscious of making them clarify something many have long thought. That we act then work out a narrative to explain our actions to ourselves. That the idea of a self, the mind body dualism, is not a true picture. The analogy some use of a man steering an unruly elephant is even too strong. We are more alike animals than even Drwin suggested. There is little difference between me and my dog. His decisions to go play, to look to be fed, to go walking out are no more than mine. Human consciousness plays but a melody on top.
The implications for this are vast. If there is no skree pilot of the skree body then I must accept that free will in many ways is an illusion. The drug addict is not responsible for his nature. Of course once ones nature is known then ones duty is to take steps to control its worst excesses. In my case a propensity to want to alter my consciousness through drugs and alcohol. I have a moral duty to curtail my worst excesses. For other deviances that a decent society can not accept; kleptomaniacs, paedophiles, rapists, must all be kept under control. If individuals are found to have sufficient neuroplasticity then they should be trained so there brains work differently. If they can not be changed then we must keep them at a safe distance. But we can not blame them for they are no more responsible for their nature than they are responsible for their gender or race.
The loss of self, a condition Buddhists aspire to, the state of flow. Gilbert Ryle, Candace Pert, Bruce Hood, Sam Harris, Malcolm Gladwell all are on to the same thing. Some come at it from old routes, Buddhism , yoga. Some from philosophy, the break away from descartes myth of the ghost in the machine. My personal journey to the idea came from believing first that making is thinking and secondly from my intuitive insight that I act then work out why I did it rather than the reverse that we grow up believing.
If we are this little in control it explains why many things re so hard. Why certain mental states appear to be so unavoidable. Why with some relationships, however much we endeavour to start again, we always return to pattern. Why, even though we know our actions are destroying our environment it seems beyond us to do much about it. It may appear fatalistic. Many turn away, preferring to remain under the illusion. But universal centrality, an idea blown apart by Galileo, being above the animals, a chosen beast of the divinity, these have fallen through revealing a far more wondrous truth. We must accept and learn. Reposition ourselves and think again.

Bought more picture space

Lunar Delivery

Loaded up the van and drove down to Exmoor. The weather had dried up and the cold on its way. The farm house is up on the edge of the moors looking down over Porlock and the Bristol Channel.

After unloading and assembling the two beds I  took two more thick yew boards and set off on the journey home. I confess that prior to this I had not quite understood the beauty of the place. It gets its fair share of rain, the waters flow down off the moors, tiny roads, barely fit for motor vehicles are your sole connect. Yet as I got on to the top of exmoor, the sun was setting to my right across the heather and gorse in a myriad of reds and golds. To my left the full moon rose across the bay, jupiter clear by its side. It made sense. I couldnt keep my eyes on the road so pulled over to drink it in.

Deadline done I stayed up with the moon that accompanied me home. 

Chair in Lead Crystal and Wenge