Thanks for all the fish

Saving Fish From Drowning
Amy Tan
Fiction, 508 pages

The relationship between mothers and daughters is a theme frequently associated with Amy Tan’s writing. In Saving Fish from Drowning she barely touches on this theme, leaving room to explore several new themes.

After sampling some of the book’s reviews on Amazon, I concluded that more than a few of her fans rejected the book for exploring new territory. That’s foolish. The book is excellent on its own merits; it shouldn’t be faulted for not following the path of its predecessors.

If it places less emphasis on the relationships of mothers and daughters, it places more on that between fathers and sons, citizens and governments, religious beliefs and superstitions, honest folk and swindlers. This novel addresses a number of themes, and addresses them well.

According to Andrew Solomon in his 2005 New York Times review, Tan’s apparent emphasis on humor is unsuccessful. It didn’t make him laugh. However it did make me laugh, and if her satire is not as biting as that of Evelyn Waugh, it is gentle and considerate of natural foibles. Solomon says Tan's characters “sorties into political incorrectness …” are “obnoxious and even colonialist …” But that’s unfair. Traces of colonialism, do linger on. Even in Star Trek, the crew of the Enterprise bends the prime directive so often as to make it clear that those traces will linger well into the future.

Tan understands and elucidates the cultures from which her characters derive. If at times her characters seem foolish, it’s because they are. She’s not being judgmental, merely observant like a good anthropologist. The narrator, Bibi Chen isn’t perfect. Neither are her characters. And if this gives rise to humor, so be it— laugh and learn.

Why the one percent wants climate change (a conspiracy theory)

My book is free on Kindle July 4, 2021 weekend

Let's discuss one of my conspiracy theories. First I'll tell you my biases. I believe that humans cause climate change just as much as I believe that humans hunted mastodons to extinction. I believe that Easter Islanders denuded their islands of vegetation prior to ending their days knocking over big stone heads. Since I also believe that the Japanese learned to manage their forests rather than denude them, I believe we should manage climate change rather than dither-about denying it. To do so effectively will require a massive amount of human cooperation and will. Without cooperation and will, other resolutions to humanity's problems will result in far more more human misery.

Climate can change for a variety of reasons. I take on faith that human activity is the main cause of current climate change. Climate science is complex and I'm no expert. I believe what I do because what I've seen matches my general science knowledge. For example, when I watch Neil Degrasse Tyson discuss climate change in his Cosmos episode on Venus, it fits with other things I know about science. On the other hand, when I hear a critic call Neil Degrasse Tyson a shill, I wonder who this critic shills with his false claims. In my view, climate change denialist arguments use cherry-picked data to back their claims. They've put their money into slick persuasion rather than sound arguments.

I also take on faith that humanity has both the technology and the ability to reduce the effects of climate change. We can't stop what's happened or what's going to happen, but we can certainly slow it down and adapt to it. What we can't do, is ignore it. Doing so would result in calamities far greater than the inconveniences we'll face if we put our efforts into tackling climate change now.

Technology and ability aren't enough however. A firm will and cooperation are required tools as well. At the moment these tools are in short supply amongst human societies. But I think attitudes can change.

Historian, Walter Sheidel writes about social collapse in his 2017 book. He shows how hunting and gathering societies must cooperate to survive. People in such societies own little besides clothing and tools. Once people began farming and herding, surpluses developed. Where there are surpluses, humans tend to create hierarchy, one result of which is Capitalism. People in hunting and gathering societies owned little besides clothing and tools. Once people began learning to farm and herd, surpluses were able to develop. Where there are surpluses, humans tend to create hierarchy, one result of which is Capitalism.

Sheidel notes that survival level societies are less innovative than hierarchical ones. Indeed, innovation was one of the advantages of our Capitalist society. During the Cold War, this advantage was promoted in public service announcements which claimed that Capitalism is superior to Communism because it encourages competition resulting in innovation and greater choice for consumers.

Now that communism is not considered the threat it once was, it might be worth considering what can be accomplished with cooperation. I believe when societies become overly hierarchical, power bottle-necks competition and opportunity, and causes poverty and ill-health. Where hierarchy was once an advantage, now it gives diminishing returns. As more and more wealth and power is held by fewer and fewer people, competition and innovation must diminish as well.

In any case it's time for my conspiracy theory. Most Americans haven’t seen significant wage increases since the early 1980s. However those in the top 20 percent have found life fairly easy. One thing, there's what, eight billion people on the planet now? Fixing the climate will mean sacrifices, and even if we make them, what will we do about all those people?

I remember a biology class experiment using two fruit fly couples. We put them in a closed environment, gave them plenty to eat and drink, and let them do their thing. They reproduced and then they reproduced some more. Soon there were generations of fruit flies living in a little closed dish. Then a couple of them died. And then they all died. They befouled themselves. Their garbage killed them. Like us — we’re getting plastic into everything. It's in shellfish. It's in fish. It's in us. So even if we start fixing the climate, we’re still drowning ourselves in our own garbage. What if Ebola or something killed most of humanity, then we wouldn’t have to do anything about climate change. Right? If we just sit back and distance ourselves from the rabble then maybe they’ll all kill themselves and solve the problem for us. And if a poor girl like me can have such a thought, imagine what wealthy people think. They’ve got more to lose than me, nicer houses, nicer cars, etc. (actually nannies like me just have school debts, not cars and houses).

And even for people who aren’t wealthy, trying to wrap your mind around all the problems humanity currently faces is enough to wish humanity extinct. Mostly. Naturally one would want a few people around and if one were rich, hung out with the cool kids, or had insider knowledge about the conspiracy, one might be able to avoid personal catastrophe oneself. But it doesn’t need to be a conspiracy, there are other ways to deny climate change. Waiting for Jesus is a good one. But I think it’s time to face up to it. If we work together we can handle this. Or die trying.

V.O Diedlaff is author of, We Can Fix It: Reclaiming the American Dream.

Flying blind, deaf and dumb

The  Washington Post on February 2 quoted the brief filed by President Trump's lawyers: "The 45th President exercised his First Amendment right under the Constitution to express his belief that the election results were suspect … Insufficient evidence exists upon which a reasonable jurist could conclude that the 45th President's statements were accurate or not, and he therefore denies they were false."

The First Amendment grants the right to speak freely. It says nothing about speaking speaking factually or drawing upon evidence or logic. The First Amendment doesn't lay down any rules. But don't assume its authors didn't intend any. The rules were so well established culturally and socially that they didn't need to be spelled out.

Enter "alternate facts," those wonderful glimpses of invented reality Kellyanne Conway introduced us to in 2017. That was our first hint that we weren't just politically polarized. Americans are, in fact, living in different realities. In one reality, five dozen failed lawsuits shouldn't influence a reasonable jurist's conclusions about whether President Trump's "statements were accurate or not." Rules of precedent and logic are thrown out in this reality. 

President Trump's second impeachment will likely be about the constitutionality of trying a president once he's left office. Since the Constitution doesn't directly address the issue, both sides will push their points. In the end it won't come down to the most convincing argument. It will come down to votes.

The Senate will fail to answer the essential question. Can a society sustain multiple consensual realities without collapsing from their inconsistencies? Practicality blinds most politicians from seeing this question in full. But some are beginning to intuit its complexity.

According to the Washington Post, during his presidency Trump's speech was "false or misleading" 30,573 times. He faced little criticism for lying from his party. Now that party is split between those condemning Marjorie Taylor Greene for living in make-believe and those condemning Liz Cheney for wanting to hold President Trump accountable for damage caused by his lies. A healthy society shares a single consensual reality, a divided society, two or more, but both share elements in common. Many of these elements are governed by social usage, others by physical laws. The battle within the Republican party will determine the shared reality it promotes. But, both parties need to consider anew the rules of the game, its logic, its facts, its ethics, goals and purpose. The best of all possible worlds is a consensual one. 

Hopes of glitz and glory

The The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today

Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner

Fiction, 448 pages

Whatever your politics, numbers don’t lie. Too many are displeased. Something stinks in Washington. During the early 1870s, two writers also suffered offended nostrils and together wrote a novel about it. Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner called their era the Gilded Age. That’s gilded, not golden. Their era lacked the solidity of deep values, having instead only a golden coating upon an unworthy foundation.

The book begins before the Civil War but largely details the years that follow. Historically this period marked the beginning of the Industrial Revolution in the United States, and some of the book’s characters are among its unwitting victims. This period saw massive capital investment in railroads and machinery as well as massive displacement of small business men and landholders. While the book’s events occur at the beginning of the age, its title lent its name to the era itself.

There are parallels here to our own age. At its height, the Gilded Age brought about massive income inequality. Some grew enormously wealthy while masses of others suffered in dire poverty. Since the 1980s our own society has moved in this direction as well. While the incomes of the top ten percent have stayed even with the living costs, those of the bottom 89 percent have not. The incomes of the wealthiest among us have soared, yet unlike Icarus, they show no signs of falling toward Earth. The technology sector with its high salaries distributed among relatively few workers echoes the effect of industrialization, though some writers fear that this time workers won’t eventually share its benefits after robots and AI eliminate their jobs.

The book touches upon industrialization as several of its characters seek speculative wealth from a new railroad line. However the bulk of the action takes place in Washington DC. Laura and her brother, George Washington Hawkins, as well as the ever optimistic and ever impoverished, Colonel Beriah Sellers, enjoy the patronage of the pious Senator Dilworthy. Since the book contains much satire, the reader is not overly surprised when Laura approaches the good senator in his study as he reads from an upside down Bible.

Washington in 1873, just like today, is a place where corruption prospers. Unlike that of today, however, the corruption is almost quaintly innocent. This book was the first novel from two authors who would subsequently write a good few more. It’s not their best. That said, it’s not that bad. Twain at his worst is better than most and Warner also writes well. However, the work doesn’t flow as well as what one would expect from authors with email and modern equipment. I’m glad I read it though. Along with satire it packs plenty of drama and provides a taste of what life was like in earlier times.

How we think we're driving when we're really just along for the ride

The Hidden Brain: how our unconscious minds elect presidents, control markets, and save our lives

Shankar Vedantam
Nonfiction, 270 pages

What a concept. We think we’re reasonable. Shankar Vedantam thinks maybe we’re not. His book explores the ways in which we fool ourselves into thinking that we make rational decisions — when in fact much of the time, we follow our unconscious biases, rather than reason.

Vedantam uses the term “hidden brain” to describe mental processes which affect our behavior without our conscious awareness of their influence. These result from errors in attention and memory; mental shortcuts we form and follow; relationships and social dynamics.

In some cases, it’s possible to train ourselves to identify and become aware of these hidden influences. In other cases, the influences remain hidden. American society however operates as if human behavior is primarily based on reason.

Vedantam presents an example involving a rape conviction based on false identification.  The woman, who identified the wrong man as her rapist, became convinced of his guilt while she was praying in church. Initially uncertain, her doubts dissolved in the safety of her church.

Emotions can affect our memories and convictions — and that’s what happened in this case. After DNA evidence had proved his innocence, the woman met the man. Upon meeting him, the first thing she noticed convinced her that she’d been wrong.

Vedantam discusses how social scientists test for racial bias — and find it even among people who claim to be unprejudiced. We believe we live in a fair society, yet experimental evidence shows that people tend to recommend the harshest penalties to those whose skin is darkest.

Sexual bias is common as well. Transgender individuals report receiving greater respect and higher salaries when they change from women to men. The opposite is reported by those who change from men to women.

Recently controversy has arisen over the possibility that a mosque might be built close to “Ground Zero.” Implicit to the controversy is the association between the terrorists who brought down the World Trade Center and Islam. Former President Bush declared a war on terrorism, not a war on Islam. To some people it means the same thing. But, you don’t have to be a Muslim to be a suicide bomber.

Vedantam reports that during the closing days of World War II, Japanese kamikazes flew suicide missions for their country. Those chosen to be kamikazes felt themselves to be among a privileged elite.  Psychologist, Masami Takahashi, son of a former kamikaze, reports that most of those who volunteered for suicide missions were not religious. It was the chance to be a hero that motivated them. Interviews with present day terrorist recruits have uncovered the same motivations.  Many of these recruits aren’t particularly religious. Vedantam quotes Marc Sageman, “People want to be suicide bombers because they are the rock stars of militant Islam.” So, what’s really needed is a war on rock star wannabes and not on moderate Muslims.

Vedantam compares the viewpoint of those who join cults or elite military units to being in a tunnel. Such people narrow their mental focus, attending to the views and aims of their particular group, and not on the world at large.

A few hours before more than 900 Americans died after they drank the Kool-Aid in Jonestown, Guyana, five others died at Guyana’s Port Katuna Airstrip.  These were gunned down by Larry Layton, another People’s Temple member. Larry had volunteered for a suicide mission to bring down a plane returning to the United States. The mission went awry — Larry survived, but five of the plane’s passengers did not.

Why had Larry Layton volunteered? He was living in a tunnel: “As he sat in his prison cell in Guyana, it slowly became apparent to Layton that the world he had inhabited for so long was not the real world, that it was only a tunnel that had appeared to be the whole world.”

Today the phrase, “drink the Kool-Aid,” refers to an uncritical acceptance of what another person or group tells you. You don’t have to be a cult member to “drink the Kool-Aid” — merely an uncritical thinker, influenced by the “hidden brain” rather than its more rational side.   

The “hidden brain” is useful because it helps us make decisions quickly. However, those decisions are not always correct. By becoming more aware about how the hidden brain works, we can begin to make better decisions both as individuals and as a society. Reading this book will get you started on the road to expanded awareness.

Science, religion, physics and God

The Purpose-Guided Universe: Believing in Einstein, Darwin and God

Bernard Haisch

Nonfiction, 222 pages

New Page Books. 2010

In this follow-up to “The God Theory,” Bernard Haisch argues that the findings of modern physics tend to support, rather than refute, the existence of God. Haisch believes in a God that neatly fits in with the theory of evolution. Unfortunately, to the extent that Haisch makes the notion of God acceptable to scientists, he also envisions a God who is unacceptable to fundamentalists.

Let’s examine how Haisch attempts to convince scientists of God’s existence and then look at why his argument might repel fundamentalists.

Haisch reports that according to some surveys, atheists account for the majority of scientists. Their atheism, Haisch believes, is partially due to the way that some have defined God. Haisch, himself rejects a God that, “… littered a 6,000-year-old earth with phony fossils to fool the arrogant archaeologists …” Such an act would be dishonest on God’s part, and therefore, un-godlike.

Isaac Newton created physics “almost single-handedly” when he published his Principia in 1687. Although Newton was a deeply religious man, his physics had an unfortunate side effect. It worked too well. Newtonian physics made it theoretically possible to determine the cause of every event that ever happened and predict the occurrence of every event to come.

In a Newtonian universe everything is predetermined. Western theology tells us that God gives us freewill. Not in a clockwork universe, he doesn’t. In fact, God isn’t even required, except perhaps to set the clock in motion. And so, God fell out of favor in the scientific community.

But then, in the twentieth century, quantum physics came along. The quantum universe is not predetermined — there’s an element of chance involved. Once again, there’s room for freewill.

Haisch describes ten ways in which the universe is finely tuned to support life. It looks as if there may be a creator after all. Not so, claim some scientists. There are a multitude of universes. This one just happens to support life. Haisch replies that the probability of our universe having occurred by chance can be described by a one followed by at least 500 zeros. That’s an enormous number of universes. Furthermore, there is no evidence to support a theory of multiple universes and no possibility of acquiring evidence. The possibility that God exists is at least as likely as the possibility of multiple universes.

Writing in the first half of the twentieth century, Sir James Jeans popularized astronomy. In his book, The Mysterious Universe, he writes of a universal mind “… the universe begins to look more like a great thought than like a great machine.”

A number of experiments have shown that particle behavior is influenced by what an observer intends to measure. The act of measuring determines the reality. Some have concluded that it is not reality that gives rise to consciousness, but consciousness that gives rise to reality.

Haisch believes that God, who exists outside of time, manifested a conscious universe, in which we are conscious actors, who will ultimately return to God.

If this doesn’t convince atheist scientists that there’s a God, it at least gives them something to think about. Now, how about those fundamentalists?

Well, they don’t like evolution or the possibility that the earth is millions of years old. But suppose we could overcome that obstacle, could we bring them around to Haisch’s view? Probably not.

Haisch’s religious views echo a mystical thread found in all the major religions. Aldous Huxley, in his book of the same name, calls this thread, The Perennial Philosophy. Although this thread is found in every religion, it is emphasized more in some than others.
Meister Eckhart is perhaps the best known Christian proponent of the perennial philosophy. The Christian tradition generally teaches that God is outside of His creation. Yet, Eckhart said, “The more God is in all things, the more He is outside them. The more He is within, the more without.”* Saying that sort of thing during the Middle Ages could get you charged with heresy, as indeed, Eckhart was.

People who have had mystical experiences tend to report, like Eckhart, that God is both within themselves and outside themselves. During such experiences, words are irrelevant. However, after the experience, verbal contradictions may come into play. While Hindus may not have difficulties with such contradictions, some Christians might.

Religious beliefs, like poetry and dreams, can be understood on several levels. Although that thread of meaning, called the perennial philosophy, can be found in Christianity, it does not occupy its mainstream. Some fundamentalist and mainstream Christians may have difficulty accepting Haisch’s elaboration of his God theory.

Regardless, Haisch’s attempt to reconcile science with religion is admirable. What Haisch does not address, yet I feel compelled to add, is that if religious believers were to be more tolerant of other faiths, than atheists would be less likely to condemn them for their beliefs.


*As quoted in Huxley’s The Perennial Philosophy.

Jokers

He’d been a popular comedian in his day,

But Alzheimer’s took all that away.

"Tell me if you’ve heard this one, he’d say."

I’d say I had, then he’d tell it anyway.

A news channel lied to people every day.

When their lies were exposed,

They’d tell them anyway.

With false boasts, these news hosts,

Viewers minds would sway.

When sued the channel fought hard

Not to pay.

They lost.

They paid and fresh lies put in play.

When awful lies are oft repeated,

Our country’s aims

Will be defeated.

Aging minds repeat old thoughts.

False ideologies cause social rot.

Fox Settled a Lawsuit Over Its Lies. But It Insisted on One Unusual Condition. Why did the network insist an agreement with the family of a murdered young man remain undisclosed until after the election? - Ben Smith, New York Times, January 17, 2021

True news is good news

 “We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality — judiciously, as you will — we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.” ― Karl Rove

Mainstream news sources and some politicians are calling it “the big lie.” By this they refer to a phrase that Adolf Hitler used in “Mein Kampf” to describe an untruth so enormous that no one would dare to question it. This time around, the lie under discussion is President Trump’s preemptive claim that if he lost the election, it would be due to voter fraud, and his follow-up claim that voter fraud cost him the election.

The mainstream news cites court rulings and election officials to defend its claim that the 2020 election was  fair. Those who claim it was stolen typically consider mainstream news to be fake. In some of their minds a cabal of leftist pedophiles has infiltrated powerful institutions and gained control. Less than five percent of men are estimated to be pedophiles. No matter how perverse lefties might be, it’s likely that fewer than one in 20 is a pedo. How did so few pedos manage to gain control of everything?

Regardless, both sides can’t be right. One side must be lying. The First Amendment, of course, guarantees Americans’ right to lie their asses off. Or does it? Actually, telling some types of lies can bring legal problems. But many other types of lies are legally bullet proof. Perhaps it’s time to change that up a bit.

Between the years 1949 and 1987, TV and radio stations were bound by the “Fairness Doctrine.” This policy required broadcasters to devote a portion of their programing to issues in the public interest. It also required them to air opposing views.

With no policy like the Fairness Doctrine to restrain them, some broadcasters now freely spew bullshit. With no rules at all, bullshit rules the internet. Take “likes.” When a user likes a  Facebook post, that signals Facebook to feed the user other posts offering the same viewpoint. Social scientists say many innate biases influence our behavior. One of these is called “confirmation bias.” This bias describes a human tendency to look for information that confirms what one already believes. Facebook willingly feeds us what we already believe. When we don't consider other viewpoints we cannot grow. 

When Russia tries to influence our votes and when its users make hateful statements, Facebook responds with too little too late and promises to do better next time. Suppose instead, Facebook stopped manipulating its feeds and provided its users a stream of mixed viewpoints? That might work somewhat like a Fairness Doctrine. This alone wouldn’t restore a common, more-or-less factual news narrative, but along with fresh, well-conceived laws, Americans might once again share the same reality.

The New Arabian Nights

 

The New Arabian Nights
Robert Louis Stevenson
Fiction, 186 pages

The "Arabian Nights" first appeared during the 10th century before evolving into its final form during the 14th. It’s said that this lengthy work is the greatest expression of fiction from the Islamic Golden Age, an age which arose during the reign of Baghdad caliph, Harun al-Rashid who ruled from 786 until 809. This golden age ended when Mongols overtook Baghdad in 1258. Harun al-Rashid had been dead several centuries by the time he was fictionalized as a ruler who intervenes anonymously in the lives of his subjects.

Robert Louis Stevenson created a more modern version of Harun al-Rashid in his Prince Florizel of Bohemia. The prince appears in stories set in France and England, and told in a mystery/espionage tone. The tale of the Suicide Club begins two cycles of stories involving the prince. After those stories, Stevenson addresses other characters and themes. In one story a scholarly scoundrel eaks out his living during the Middle Ages,

“The poet was a rag of a man, dark, little, and lean, with hollow cheeks and thin black locks. He carried his four-and- twenty years with feverish animation. Greed had made folds about his eyes, evil smiles had puckered his mouth. The wolf and pig struggled together in his face. It was an eloquent, sharp, ugly, earthly countenance. His hands were small and prehensile, with fingers knotted like a cord;”

While the story cycles featuring Prince Florizel resemble the mystery/espionage genre, the collection overall is genre free — or perhaps hinting of genre without being confined by it. The stories also have a fairytale-like quality as do the original Arabian Nights. However, fairytales tend to generalise, but these tales come with the details filled in. Still, like fairytales, they tug at the corners of reality enough to matter. Each story finds an unexpected destination, yet one that evolves naturally from what comes before.

Lost and found

 Many readers know that works from 1925 have recently entered the public domain. That means
you can read them for free -- if you can find them. So far I've only seen "The Great Gatsby" available as a free download. I didn't find a stand-alone version of that title, but I found something better, F. Scott Fitzgerald's collected works.

Works by George Orwell and Sinclair Lewis have also entered the public domain in the United States, but I haven't been able to find any freebies so far in my country. But literary works in the public domain here might also be so in other countries. And they are. Although Project Gutenberg hasn't released certain books on its American website, it has done so on its Australian website.

When a publisher releases a physical book, it must recoup the costs of paper and printing. Those costs remain even if the work is in the public domain. However because bandwidth is cheap, I believe many public domain eBooks are overpriced. To avoid being gouged, sometimes a little extra effort is needed. After downloading eBooks to my computer, I transfer them to the extra drive I installed on my Kindle Fire. In order to read those books, I use a file explorer application to open them. One of my new eBooks appeared in my Kindle's list of titles. The others didn't. I've no idea why. Regardless, I can always open eBooks with the file explorer. Thrifty folk sometimes have to use workarounds. I don't mind.

Bumper crop

Poor Donny Two Peaches. All at once he lost his Twitter account, his Facebook account, Cabinet members, the respect of many supporters, and now he might be forced into early retirement. Perhaps even prison.

His good buddy Mike is so upset that he hasn't been answering his phone.

Nancy and Chuck no longer want to play with him. Even his buddy Mitch doesn't want to hang out with him anymore.

When will this sad story end? Perhaps on January 20. Perhaps somewhat sooner. Another bad boy, Tricky Dick, got asked to leave. And he did. But this time it's different. Only the other team is saying he should leave. The teammates of Donny Two Peaches haven't asked him to leave the game because they've lost their balls. Only Lisa found her balls. None of the boys. Isn't that silly? Bye-bye balls. Bye-bye integrity.

About those First Amendment rights

 

On January 7, 2021 Senator Josh Hawley tweeted:

“This could not be more Orwellian. Simon & Schuster is canceling my contract because I was representing my constituents, leading a debate on the Senate floor on voter integrity, which they have now decided to redefine as sedition. Let me be clear, this is not just a contract dispute. It's a direct assault on the First Amendment. (Yada, yada, yada) We'll see you in court.”

 Let’s take a closer look at this. Hawley mentions “Simon & Schuster,” “they” and “sedition” all in the same sentence. But, publisher Simon & Schuster has not accused Hawley of sedition. Hawley’s chief accuser is a PAC called The Lincoln Project which represents disgruntled current and former Republicans. Is his grammatical ambiguity Hawley’s attempt to write in Orwell's Newspeak? It's certainly Orwellian to contest votes for which there’s no evidence of voter fraud, but I digress.

 Anyone who occasionally glances at publishing news will know that publishers regularly cancel contracts. They do this for a variety of reasons, but the chief reason is future profits. Publishers are capitalists you see. They’re in business to make money. Perhaps we'll never know the 'true' reason S&S made its decision. Whatever the reason, it's not fair to say, “It's a direct assault on the First Amendment,” because once it passes through a publisher, speech isn’t free anymore, but sold at a profit. At various points in my career I’ve met people who say this sort of thing. Most have an inflated sense of self-entitlement. That seems to be a characteristic of the ruling class, people who like Hawley, attend expensive colleges, suffer from affluenza, and threaten to sue people. The ruling class has a name for those who stormed the Capital naively believing that taking selfies and destroying property will somehow change election results. They’re called sacrificed pawns. They're meant to be lied to, cheated, used and discarded.

The Best of 1899

 

Although a new year is upon us let us not forget some noteworthy titles from 1899. Consider these two non-fiction titles: The first is from, a relatively unknown Norwegian-Ameircan Minnesotan, Thorstein Veblen. He published a radically new theory drawing upon sociology as well as economics. He calls it, “The Theory of the Leisure Class: An Economic Study of Institutions ”.

A new historical account about the Boer War of 1881 was published by popular fiction writer, H. Rider Haggard. Additionally, his popular novel written several years ago, “She: A History of Adventure” has been captured for the new visual media, cinema, thanks to the illusionist, Georges Méliès.

In addition to non-fiction, the final year of the century had its notable fiction. “To Have and to Hold” by Mary Johnston will be a best seller in the first year of the twentieth century. Kate Chopin’s “The Awakening” promises to be well received in the future as well.

Those who like Haggard’s adventurous fantasies are probably also familiar with the name H. G. Wells. He, too, published a new title in 1899, “When the Sleeper Wakes”. The novel tells of a sleepless man who finally finds slumber only to waken more than two hundred years later. Thanks to an investment on his behalf, the sleeper is now the wealthiest man in world. Without revealing any spoilers, I’d like to mention that the Wells will issue a revision in 1910. By that time Wells, will have published another 11 novels. That may matter now, but it won’t by the year 2000. In that future, Wells will largely be known for only three novels, “The Time Machine”, “The Invisible Man”, and “War of the Worlds”. All three were published prior to 1899.

Kerouac's days in Denver

 

Jack Kerouac’s writing doesn’t mention Boulder as a place he visited in Colorado, yet there’s a school named after him there. Founded in 1974 by Allen Ginsberg and Anne Waldman it’s Naropa University’s Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics.

Kerouac became disembodied in 1969 at the age of 47. Neal Cassady, who inspired Kerouac’s best known novel, "On the Road" did so a year earlier. Unlike his two friends who lived faster and died younger, Ginsberg almost made it into the new millennium. He died in 1997.

The movie, “Howl,” stars James Franco as Allen Ginsberg and, takes place during the Beat era — an era that owes its name to Kerouac. Who were the Beats? Where does Colorado fit in?

William S. Burroughs was mentor to the group of writers who would later be called the Beats. Burroughs, who was fascinated by life’s seamy side, learned the word “beat” from Herbert Huncke, a Chicago junkie. Hunke used the word as a synonym for poor. It was Jack Kerouac who modified its meaning, making “beat” a combination of poor and beatific, “like sleeping in the subways … and yet being illuminated and having illuminated ideas about apocalypse and all that.”

Ginsberg and Kerouac met Cassady in 1946 when brought his wife to New York from Denver to look up his friend, Hal Chase, who also knew Ginsberg and Kerouac. Handsome, exuberant and amoral, Cassady mesmerized Ginsberg and Kerouac.

Cassady’s wife, LuAnne left her negligent husband in January 1947 and returned to Denver. Some months later, Cassady returned as well. The hitchhiking Kerouac was dropped off on Larimer Street in July. Respectable today Larimer Street was Denver’s skid row in 1947. Cassady had spent much of his childhood there.

While staying in Denver, Kerouac visited Central City, where he attended a performance of Fidelio at its opera house. He bathed in the hotel room of one of its performers before repairing to a miner’s shack for an evening of revelry. Today people go to Central City to attend performances at its old opera house and gamble in its newer casinos.

Kerouac’s desire to ranch or farm in Colorado is recorded in his journal. He returned to Denver in May of 1949 after selling his first novel, “The Town and the City.”

He rented a house several days after arriving, and wrote its Westwood, Colorado address in his journal. Today that address is in Lakewood, which incorporated as a city in 1969. The house is west of Sheridan, which forms the border between Lakewood and Denver.

In his journal, Kerouac talks of walking to Morrison Road to buy a notebook. He stopped for beer at a roadhouse. That roadhouse may well have been Hart’s Corner at the intersection of Mississippi and Sheridan. Hart’s Corner began as a root beer stand in 1929 and kept its name well into this century.

He also wrote that he, “looked out on the fields of golden green and the great mountains,” from his back door. That view is gone now, but the view from Lakewood’s Belmar Park is a good approximation.

While waiting for his family to join him in Colorado, Kerouac’s money and self-esteem diminished, while his impatience and depression increased. He took a boy he befriended to Lakeside Amusement Park where they “rode around a sad little lake in a toy railroad.” The train was pulled by one of two engines which had been used during the 1904 Saint Louis World’s Fair. Lakeside acquired them prior to its opening in 1908. Those engines were still running recently.

Kerouac’s family joined him in Colorado, but none of them stayed long. Kerouac, accompanied by his sister and brother-in-law, dropped his mother off at the train station on July 4. Afterward, they attempted to lessen Kerouac’s sadness with a picnic at Berkeley Lake. This lake is to the east of Sheridan Boulevard; Lakeside Amusement Park is west of Sheridan. Both border I-70.

Kerouac traveled to Colorado a final time in 1950 using airfare money provided by his publisher. He took a bus because it was cheaper than flying.

Before Kerouac’s arrival, Cassady broke one of his thumbs jabbing his wife’s forehead. Kerouac and Cassady visited the rundown Windsor Hotel on Larimer and 18th Street where Cassady had lived with his alcoholic father. During the visit, Cassady injured his other thumb by striking the men’s room door repeatedly.

Galileo's Error

Galileo's Error: Foundations for a New Science of Consciousness
Philip Goff
Non-fiction, 256 pages

Galileo determined that the natural world can be measured with math. Certain qualities, however, are unmeasurable because they are derived from the soul rather than from nature. Sensory qualities like “yellow” can’t be measured like size, weight, or movement. Aside from unmeasurable sensory qualities and similar information, Galileo’s method describes nature quite well. But the method creates an error: “Galileo’s error was to commit us to a theory of nature which entailed that consciousness was essentially and inevitably mysterious. In other words, Galileo created the problem of consciousness.”

It took a while to notice the problem. It didn’t trouble René Descartes at all that Galileo’s method couldn’t address unmeasurable qualities. For Descartes, matter was one thing while mind was another. While a bodily action might follow a mental intention, both body and mind, being distinct, can exist without the other.

Today Descartes’ dualism has fallen out of fashion. Materialists argue that it’s the brain that generates consciousness, nothing more. Some, such as Daniel Dennett, argue that consciousness is a brain-generated illusion.

Goff describes several arguments that refute the materialist view of consciousness. Of these, I’m most convinced by David Chalmers’s argument that materialism fails to address the “Hard Question of Consciousness.” Connecting the brain with its outward actions answers easy questions. Such examination can never explain why we experience life as we do. Nobody questions their own experience, but materialists encounter Galileo’s soul derived qualities when they attempt to explain it.

Goff explores one possibility that might save dualism. It involves quantum physics. “By far the strangest aspect of quantum mechanics is that observation seems to make a difference to how the universe behaves.” If an observation is necessary, what else but a mind could perform that function?

 The argument is complicated and involves Schrödinger’s imaginary cat. The cat does just fine when nobody is looking. It’s both alive and dead. But once an observation is made the cat becomes either living or dead. Weird as it sounds, physics has yet to solve this contradiction.

 Goff does not defend dualism for long. Instead he moves on to panpsychism, a view that holds that consciousness is somehow an inherent quality of nature. The problem with panpsychism however is that it fails to provide a mechanism for how the simple consciousness of, say, atomic particles, combine to create the complex consciousness of a human being.

 Every approach to philosophy of mind has problems, Goff explains. However he believes that panpsychism offers the best explanatory approach. While his arguments are inconclusive his explanations are clear and readable. That’s good. Philosophical arguments can be tough for non-philosophers to digest. I have only one criticism. In explaining how the observation problem in physics might save dualism, Goff misses an opportunity to investigate how the observation problem might strengthen the argument for panpsychism.

 Goff’s book is a good introduction to philosophy of mind. Annaka Harris provides another good introduction in her book “Conscious: A Brief Guide to the Fundamental Mystery of the Mind.” Despite its shorter length, her book covers the same territory and throws in meditation as well. I won’t say more now about her book now but hope to provide a more complete review later. 

Altered Traits

Altered Traits: Science Reveals How Meditation Changes Your Mind, Brain, and Body

by Daniel Goleman and Richard J. Davidson 

Non-fiction, 336 pages

I read many dull research papers in school. Since then I’ve concluded that research oriented psychologists can’t write, while therapy oriented psychologists don’t understand science. I’ve changed my view. Authors, Daniel Goleman and Richard J. Davidson, are both able researchers and writers.

This is great. I’ve read far too much well done research that doesn’t say much and far too much self-help psychology that cherry picks science.

The authors spent decades studying meditation, and are honest enough to say where their research was poorly designed or flawed. They began their research in the 1970s before tools such as fMRI and SPECT became available and learned a lot over their years.

Books about science and fiction by Steig Larrson can be repetitive. That’s necessary sometimes. While reading this book, expect repetition. It’s worth it: this is the definitive book on meditation research.

The authors discuss research into three types of meditation, “focusing on breathing; generating loving kindness; and monitoring thoughts without getting swept away by them.” Each of the three meditations can cause mental changes, some brief and some lasting. While breath or mantra meditators requires multiple sessions before change can be noticed, loving kindness meditation brings results after only a single session.

Temporary changes, while interesting, are not the same as altered traits. These require years of meditation. Yogis who’ve spent decades practicing the third type of meditation have yielded astonishing findings. “Gamma, the very fastest brain wave occurs during moments when differing brain regions fire in harmony, like moments of insight when different elements of a mental puzzle ‘click’ together.” Gamma wave activity lasts only a fifth of a second for most people, but some yogis can generate gamma waves for minutes at a time, even in their sleep. I’d love to know what’s on their minds. Guess I should meditate more.

Help, I'm a cop

Burmese Days
George Orwell
Fiction, 291 pages 

"It's a drag being a cop" ~ Frank Zappa, "Help, I'm a rock"

George Orwell was brainwashed. This happened in Myanmar (formerly Burma) during his five years as a policeman. He was brainwashed by the pukka sahibs’ code. The code of imperialist occupiers. The code of colonial hypocrisy. A code similar to the one currently protested by the BLM movement.

The protagonist of "Burmese Days" is not a policeman. However, John Flory has seen through the code and now belongs nowhere--not in Burma, nor back in England.

"It is a stifling, stultifying world in which to live. It is a world in which every word and every thought is censored. In England it is hard even to imagine such an atmosphere. Everyone is free in England; we sell our souls in public and buy them back in private, among our friends. But even friendship can hardly exist when every white man is a cog in the wheels of despotism. Free speech is unthinkable. All other kinds of freedom are permitted. You are free to be a drunkard, an idler, a coward, a backbiter, a fornicator; but you are not free to think for yourself. Your opinion on every subject of any conceivable importance is dictated for you by the pukka sahibs’ code.

In the end the secrecy of your revolt poisons you like a secret disease. Your whole life is a life of lies. Year after year you sit in Kipling-haunted little Clubs, whisky to right of you, Pink’un to left of you, listening and eagerly agreeing while Colonel Bodger develops his theory that these bloody Nationalists should be boiled in oil. You hear your Oriental friends called ‘greasy little babus’, and you admit, dutifully, that they are greasy little babus. You see louts fresh from school kicking grey-haired servants. The time comes when you burn with hatred of your own countrymen, when you long for a native rising to drown their Empire in blood. And in this there is nothing honourable, hardly even any sincerity. For, au fond, what do you care if the Indian Empire is a despotism, if Indians are bullied and exploited? You only care because the right of free speech is denied you. You are a creature of the despotism, a pukka sahib, tied tighter than a monk or a savage by an unbreakable system of tabus."

John Flory's story isn't a pleasant one. It's a story of a conflicted man wanting, but unable, to do the right thing. I wonder how many good cops feel this way, wanting to improve society but hampered by their coworkers. The code of silence they follow prevents them from reporting bad fellow officers, just as the pukka sahibs’ code prevents John Flory from confronting the racism of Burma's imperialist occupiers. As always, George Orwell delivers.

It's like the egg laying the chicken - or mixing metaphors - Ouroboros

Beyond Biocentrism: Rethinking Time, Space, Consciousness, and the Illusion of Death

Robert Lanza and Bob Berman

Non-fiction, 224 pages

In their first book, Lanza and Berman presented Biocentrism, a view that accounts for some of the anomalies of physics. This book takes the argument further. The science is solid, but I question the validity of the authors’ conclusions.

 

The scientific argument begins with with a hard nut that physicists have tried to crack for nearly one hundred years. Things are not as they seem. The model of an atom one first encountered in elementary school is not realistic. In reality, electrons don’t cross atomic nucleuses in neat orbits. In reality, they’re everywhere at once. Electrons exist in a superposition of all possible locations until interfered with. As soon as a measurement is taken, the electron’s “wave function” collapses and it shows itself. Since observation is required to determine an electron’s position, the role of consciousness plays a key part in how the universe operates. Hence, life itself, steers the universe’s unfolding.

 

While the authors’ argument is novel, the science is not. I don’t question that the authors are on to something. I only question that something’s implications. Let’s skip over the science and go directly to conclusions:

 

“What is not in doubt even in these early research stages is that the observer is correlative with the cosmos. That time does not exist. And perhaps the most cheerful takeaway from biocentrism: Since there’s no self-existing space-time matrix in which energy can dissipate, it’s impossible for you to ‘go’ anywhere.

 

In a nutshell, death is illusory. ... Consciousness and awareness never began, and will never end.”

 

And yet, when one sleeps can one be said to be conscious? For that matter, how can there be a “when” if time is illusory?

 

Backing up a bit, the authors note that logic and science are not the only methods of gaining knowledge. Intuitions arise from neither and are generally correct. Upon seeing a corpse, intuition tells us that the body’s former occupant has departed. But where did it go? Here’s the explanation:

 

“The feeling of “me,” of consciousness itself, could be considered a 23-watt energy cloud, which is the brain’s energy consumption in producing our sense of ‘being’ and its myriad sensory manifestations. Energy, as we learned in high school physics, is never lost. It can change form but it never dissipates or disappears. So what happens when those brain cells die?”

 

The answer is that death is an illusion. One can’t die because, “neither space nor time are real in any sense except as appearances or tools of the mind.”

 

In the first appendix we learn the difference between mind and brain. “The brain is a physical object occupying a specific location. It exists as a spatio-temporal construction ... .” Other objects like tables must also be constructions, yet you can’t crowd those constructions into brains. Paradoxical. Space isn’t real, but you still have to watch where you place things. Luckily we don’t have to worry about where one places one’s mind. “But the mind has no location. It is everywhere you observe, smell, or hear anything.”

 

I can’t quite wrap my own mind around this. Maybe with more explanation. The authors are releasing another book in November. I can barely wait.