No Such Thing as True Self

There is no such thing as true self. Yes, genetically everyone is unique, but genetic blueprint is not equivalent to self. Genetic blueprint is like a mold. It does shape the outcome as in how the individual would be, but the substance of the outcome depends on the ingredients of the inputs. These ingredients are thoughts and ideologies, and other elements from the social environment the individual is exposed to. These will determine what thoughts and ideologies the individual himself would have.

Self is a conscious entity with ideas. And whatever ideas one has, one acquires them from the world one lives in. Ideas, and hence the self, is not a genetic given.

If we say that whatever ideas one has, they are acquired from the world outside; meaning, however the individual is, he is shaped by the elements from the external world; then how can one claim a set of ideas as truly one's own? How can one say that a particular behavioral pattern-bearing entity is one's true self?

People develop ideologies, tastes, preferences, wants, desires and so on, and begin to think they are their personal tastes, preferences. Moreover, they think that because there is such a thing as true self, and that everyone has a true self, everyone is entitled to live life the way they want; because following one's true self is the only right thing. They name this entitlement as 'individual sovereignty'.

Let's have a closer look into this, to see whether one's ideologies, tastes, preferences, wants, desires and so on (i.e. self) are really one's own. Taking an example of fashion. Currently slim-fit denims are in fashion, and so I prefer those, as does everyone else I know. Now, ten years back bell-bottom ones were in fashion. I do remember that I had then a couple of old slim-fit pair of jeans (which would have been considered ultra-modern today) of my dad's which at that time I never thought of wearing. Because in those times only girls wore slim-fit jeans. I, like everybody I knew then, preferred bell-bottom ones. And I thought that those looked attractive too, which seems rather funny today; because today slim-fit ones are deemed attractive and everybody wants slim-fit. (The fact that my dad had slim-fit ones means in his time they must have been in fashion, too.)

What is to be seen in the example is, how is it that people (a group as large as a community, city or even a nation) have one uniform preference at one point in time and another uniform preference at another point in time? Is my desire today of buying a pair of slim-fit jeans my own desire? As in, is the desire coming from my true self? Is it just a coincidence that my true self and the true selves of the entire world I know have the same preference in jeans? The fact is, what I think is my own desire is actually formed by what I see other people doing.

Whatever we think we are – our thoughts, ideologies, tastes, preferences, wants, desires, ... – it's all shaped by our experiences with the world we live in; by seeing and observing other people, their behavior and habits, and many other things surrounding our existence. People from a particular religious or cultural background have similar traits and behavioral patters. Most people behave in statistically predictable ways. It points to the fact that individual self is made up of shared and collective ideas and experiences. Self is not a genetic given, and hence no individual has a thing called true self.

The fact that one's self or individuality is formed by the elements of external world means people can be systematically conditioned to have certain self. That's what corporations and vested interests through media and advertisements do today. They make people desire things they don't really need, but people think it's their own desires.

No true self means that no one has preferences that are truly their own. No one has individuality in true sense, and therefore in my opinion, no one is actually entitled to 'individual sovereignty', which is a crazy modern ideal.

What does it spell for individual rights and individual freedom? Topic for the future.

What Is Rationality? Is Man Rational?

"Man is a rational animal — so at least I have been told. Throughout a long life, I have looked diligently for evidence in favor of this statement, but so far I have not had the good fortune to come across it, though I have searched in many countries spread over three continents." (Bertrand Russell)


Rationality is defined as a) the state or quality of being rational or logical, and b) the possession or utilization of reason or logic; where rational is defined as a) having or exercising the ability to reason, and b) of sound mind; sane.

These are general definitions. The terms can be understood in a deeper way. Man is said to be a rational animal. Does that mean all men are logical and are good at utilizing reason? If not, then why is man still called a rational animal? There are irrational men and there are rational men. So, what it is to be truly Rational?

What Is Rationality?

As the definition above says, rationality is a state or quality of being rational (i.e. exercising the ability to reason) or logical. However, this definition doesn't actually tell us if rationality is a positive or a negative trait. All it says is that rationality is a way, a method. A tool. Now, without any underlying values and belief system the tool called rationality is useless and means nothing. Our values and belief system help us decide our goals; and to act in ways that take us closer to our goals then becomes a rational thing to do. So, only in context of our goals we can say that to do and think certain way is rational or irrational. Rationality is a tool to help us achieve the ends. The ends are the goals that we set in life. Rationality tells us how exactly are we supposed to live if we want to meet those goals.

To take a simple example, if your goal is to become a computer engineer then we can say that it is irrational to spend your time reading books about, say, quantum physics; and rational thing to do is to learn about computers.

But does that tell us whether learning about quantum physics or computers is in itself rational or irrational irrespective of one's goals?

If what is rational depends on one's goals then isn't rationality subjective, since everyone has their own different set of goals? This question perplexed me for a long time when I was grappling with understanding rationality. I would often think of a terrorist and try to understand how to prove his acts irrational. No doubt that terrorists are gruesome human beings, for killing people the way they do, and for the reasons they have for it, is wrong. But think about it in this way: the terrorist believes that doing what he does is God's will, and the only way for him to get to the heaven. He is brainwashed into believing that his acts serve the greatest purpose of humanity. His 'knowledge and understanding' is limited, and so flawed are his 'values and belief system', and consequently his 'goals'. But is he aware of it all? Clearly not. So, he is actually choosing the most rational path for himself. That means when we say that terrorists are irrational people, mustn't we mean that they are irrational from our perspective but they may be rational otherwise?

This was an extreme example. But an important and somewhat startling learning out of it is: for given knowledge and understanding – also called 'starting assumptions' – if one takes the most logical path to reach one's goals then one is rational. There are two caveats in this statement. 1) one's knowledge and understanding about life may be flawed, or not the best, and 2) one's reasoning/logic in pursuance of the goals based on those starting assumptions may be flawed.

In the terrorist example, therefore, even if the terrorist's reasoning may be fine, his knowledge and understanding is flawed. There's no God, no heaven etc, and the guy is misled big time. So, to us having better knowledge and understanding he is irrational. Likewise, there may also be cases where the starting assumptions are right but the reasoning process followed is flawed. (Refer to the list of fallacies.)

So, when it is said that one has rational arguments for one's position, that in itself does not mean that the position one's arguing for is good, and the person is rational; because even if one has rational arguments supporting one's position, as we saw, rationality is merely a tool. Till we don't know the person's goals (which are determined by the starting assumptions) and his reasoning process, we can't tell if he is rational.

Ancient Greeks had concepts of rationality called theoria (theoretical reason) and praxis (practical reason). The latter is also called instrumental rationality. Instrumental rationality is a tool to serve specific ends. If you have followed this article well, you would know that it's all I have talked about. And looking into the caveats we also understood that anybody can be instrumentally rational and at the same time be irrational from others' point of view.

What is theoretical reason? Theoria is that rationality which justifies a position irrespective of any individual's starting assumptions. The position reached through this type of rationality is 'the rational' position. It's what is truly Rational. But I believe since we have epistemic limits we can't have absolute knowledge. Meaning, there's always a possibility that our knowledge and understanding can be improved. Therefore, in true sense, we can never be truly Rational. Corollary is: rationality is always subjective. Theoria, however and therefore, justifies a position reached through the best of human knowledge and understanding.

Is Man Rational?

Humans are called rational animals in that they always have some justification for whatever they are doing. I think the appeal here is to instrumental rationality. However, I believe, most humans don't even meet the conditions of instrumental rationality. For example, when pushed by emotions and instincts humans often act in a way that they know in their head is not the best way (defying their own knowledge and understanding) and also the reasoning followed by most people is not always correct. So, I would say humans quite often are irrational on this count.

As for being rational in theoria sense, vast majority of humans are irrational, because the goals most of the human pursue are not the best ones, i.e. not derived using the best of human knowledge and understanding of life.

Monkey With a Machine Gun

Everybody has great intentions. Well, almost everybody.

A monkey with a machine gun in hand doesn't have to have bad intentions. It's just a wrong situation. There will be destruction regardless of the monkey's intentions.

Modern generation are the monkeys and many elements of modern environment are the machine guns. And everybody has good intentions, but so what? For nobody (well, almost nobody) understands their environment, the world they are living in, whatever their intentions, they are prone to fucking up.

When someone tells me to trust him/her, for s/he has pure heart and good intentions, and that s/he is not like everyone else, I want to tell them: I don't doubt your intentions, dear, but you're a monkey with a machine gun. You have no idea what you will do until you have done it.


[I might extend this post in the future. If you like, keep checking until this message is removed.]

Why Choose Philosophy Over Mindless Living

Here by 'philosophy' I mean philosophical development through truth-seeking and critical thinking.

The mantra of mindless living is: don't think, just enjoy! There's no shortage of people who would tell you things like.. the gift of life comes only once, so live it to the fullest.. do not think too much.. do not remain serious.. have fun.. etcetera. Now, fun is okay, but "don't think" and "don't be serious"? As if it's some sort of disease to be serious.

I on the other hand strongly believe that the philosophy of mindless living is not only harmful for an individual living that way but is pernicious from the point of view of society too. Not only that, I think the best way to spend human life is to live with philosophical inclination. To say like them, philosophy is actually and truly the way through which one can live life to the fullest. Mindless living is like living inside a little box. How much can the scope of ignorance be?

In this post I give reasons to choose philosophy over mindless living.

I think a life spent in pursuit of the most "worthwhile goal", or the "highest good" is the best lived life. What is the highest good? To state from Aristotle's Virtue Ethics, if at the end of one's life one looks back and genuinely feels that one has had a good life then that is a happy life. Aristotle called this happiness Eudaimonia (which is Greek for wellbeing). In this sense, the purpose of human life, or the "highest good", should be to achieve eudaimonia.

Now, eudaimonia or eudaimonic happiness is different from fun and pleasure-happiness which is what mindless life is about. For example, hooking up in a one-night-stand can be a pleasurable experience, but constant pursuit of such pleasure is certainly not in one's best long term interest. In the concept of eudaimonia, fun and pleasures are not strictly to be avoided, but they shouldn't be pursued as ends. They are good only to the extent they contribute to eudaimonia. Simply meaning, such fun/pleasure which can harm you in the long run is bad. So, a good happy life is a long term project. And to accomplish this one needs to develop intellect/intelligence and use it to understand about life. For only then one can take good decisions for the long run. And that's where the importance of philosophical development.

Philosophical pursuit has its pitfalls, too. One may run into angst and become suicidal if one isn't able to reconcile with the truth. Should that happen, however, I wouldn't blame the philosophical way itself, but say that one is a bad philosopher.

As for mindless living, it is sure fun to live that way. And if one is lucky enough one may get through life without any trouble at all. But most people are not that lucky; not to mention mindless living in any case is not good for overall wellbeing of the world. The pitfalls of mindless living are when hard times strike. In hard times there is suffering. And to suffer and not have a clue about why the suffering is happening is a terrible state to be in. Most people frequently experience that state. I know quite a few who are perennially like that. They whine all the time, like narcissistic little children, about how the world is totally unfair to them, not knowing the actual causes of their misery, much less able to do anything about it. A good philosopher does suffer, but s/he would never face that sort of misery. Misery is the state of suffering which has to be overcome. And the best way to avoid misery is philosophical development, i.e. understanding life and the causes of suffering. I won't say that a philosopher can bear all suffering, but I would emphasize the fact that a good philosopher is in the best position to deal with suffering, because he knows the design of life and the causes of suffering. A non-philosopher person has two-fold suffering. The suffering itself, and the suffering of not understanding why, how and what of the problem.

Apart from the personal costs and benefits: people who are not critical thinkers often cause problems for themselves and for others without even realizing that they are doing so. I wrote a post about it a while back which should give you a general idea of what I am saying. When I see such people and feel irritated and wish they knew better to live, what does that mean for me? That I have to be better, and better, and better, always. Because if I give up on being better, I can't expect others to improve themselves too, whatever be their level. And that can't work. The world as we have it today simply won't sustain itself if everybody started living in a narcissistic way only for fun without regard to how they affect others. The fact is, everyone is by default a cost on the society and affects negatively others' wellbeing. It's only by playing some positive role in the social setting one offsets the default negative costs one exerts just by existing. That's the reason we don't prey on each other in the civilized world like the animals do in jungle. Therefore it's necessary that we understand the world we are living in, and more importantly, recognize our fundamental duties as human beings. Do those who live mindlessly have all this knowledge? And it's so fundamental. See the harm?

As for me, I feel moral ought to understand life and its problems as much as I can, not only to pursue my goal of eudaimonia, but also in order to live as harmlessly as possible and educate others about the same. It gives me a solid meaning. And meaning is the most important ingredient that goes into creating in the end a sense of having lived a good, worthwhile life. More than fun and pleasure, I think, man needs solid meaning.

Now we saw two solid reasons why philosophy is preferable to mindless living, based on 1) personal costs and benefits of mindless living and philosophical life, and 2) social costs and benefits of the same. And synthesis of the two would reveal that philosophy nurtures an individual in a way that doens't undermine his/her environment (the society), which is the only way to sustainable development.

Our life is so designed that one can't meet one's own best interests if not through pursuing best interests of the world one lives in. Mindless living is too narrow in scope for that. Not even selfish me would approve of it.


Related post(s):

• How Non-Critical Thinkers Create Problems

Is Sex a Basic Need Like Food and Water?

I often hear people – recently the advocates of sexual libertinism or free sex, especially – say that sex is a basic human need like food and water. I agree that it is a basic need, and a pretty strong one at that; but I don't think it is as basic a need as that for food and water. The need for sex, and the need for food and water, therefore, don't gel well in the same sentence.

Here are some of the differences:

Without food and water a person dies. Without sex, one doesn't. For survival one doesn't need sex, much less free sex. So, when we have good reasons for regulating our drive for sex, to keep the society from falling apart, we must do so. Sexual restrictiveness and regulation is one of the fundamentals of our civilization.

Another difference: acquiring food is much less (relatively speaking) complicated than getting sex. The pursuit of sex can take high toll on one's mental and material resources, considering it is not as urgent a need as food/water. Winning a mating partner often requires systematic 'gaming'. There are complications even when one achieves the goal with ease.

Sex develops romantic love, which in my view is not a very healthy state to be in. Our long-standing tradition which rightly saw romantic love as frivolous thing validates this view.

Sex, at the very least, entails a contract between individuals which inevitably extends to things not covered in the original bargain (i.e. sexual intercourse), and can weigh the individuals down. More often than not the costs (mental costs -- possessiveness, jealousy, obsession, restlessness.. material costs -- gifts, money,.. social costs -- lack of focus on education and its social consequences, loss of more meaningful friendships, work and marriage,..) this contract exerts offset the pleasure one gets from sexual intercourse. That's probably the reason one often feels kind of guilty when pursuing sex just for the sake of it. It happens because of the conflict within; the conflict between one's own human nature and animal nature.

If one buys sex in the market then some of the costs mentioned above can be avoided, but that's not the way most people want to have sex. Nor do I recommend that.

What I am saying is, sex is a lot more complex and a lot less basic need than the need for food; and the complexity of its pursuit makes it counterproductive with respect to our social goals. Sex serves absolutely no other human purpose than giving one a child, if one wants a child, that is. Aside from this one thing, in all cases it merely complicates civilized human life.

It does give pleasure, but in my opinion pleasure is not a worthwhile human goal. Pleasure should be a secondary pursuit, primary one being something worthwhile, which would be contributing towards making and maintaining various social contracts that make pleasure-consumption even possible. For, without social contracts, i.e. in the state of Nature, pleasure as we have today would be a rare luxury. The drive for pleasure must not undermine the very arrangement which makes pleasure possible.

Therefore, sex enjoyed within marriage – or in a similar long term commitment based on reasons better than romantic love and physical attraction – is the best way to go about it. For thereby one has the pleasure within a worthwhile social contract of marriage which serves higher human goals. As against that, coming together of individuals in a fling is myopic from society's standpoint.

People constantly pursuing sex and justifying their pursuit saying it is a basic need like food and water must know that while spending their time and energy upon the pursuit of sex they would for the long run be losing out on the opportunities to build a good, secure and peaceful life.

Free sex has disastrous social implications because sex only gives pleasure but doesn't satisfy any of the important needs of human nature (except reproduction) and thereby of human societies. Albeit, without the social control mechanism that we had in the form of religious morality it doesn't seem possible to keep individuals from exercising sexual freedom. The result to be expected is: 'jungle rule', in sexual sphere at least.


Related post(s):

• Is Sexual Freedom a Good Thing?
• Sex – Love or Expression of Love

Difference Between Pain, Suffering and Misery

The words 'pain' and 'suffering' don't seem to have a definite meaning and are often used interchangeably. In this post I have spelled out their meaning as I think of them.

Pain refers to physical discomfort beyond the point where it becomes difficult for the one having it to function normally. What is thought of as normal functioning is a subjective matter; but the point is: pain is physical.

In contrast to that, suffering is psychological, i.e. of the mind. Suffering is a broad term containing avoidable and unavoidable experiences that we don't want to have. So, the one who is in pain is also suffering (unless one is enjoying the pain) because it is an experience one wouldn't want to have.

Suffering can be in many forms apart from pain.


Why suffering?

While pain is experienced by many animals, it requires consciousness for suffering to be felt. As I said, suffering is any experience that one does not want to have. That definition of suffering presupposes cognition and thought processes; things that are made possible by consciousness and self-awareness.

An animal without consciousness does not know that it does not want to have certain experience; because an animal without consciousness hasn't the ability to see itself as distinct entity apart from Nature (i.e. no self-awareness), much less has a sense of what experiences it wants and wants not to have.

Though it is evident that animals feel pain (from their wailing and other behavior), but since they lack self-awareness and advanced thought processes they behave heteronomously (as against autonomous), in a preprogrammed way without realizing if they want or want not to have the experience. We can not say definitively to what extent other animals feel suffering, but the extent of suffering humans feel is the greatest. The reason being that we have the most sophisticated consciousness known among all animals.


Additional note

Suffering is not to be eliminated, because it's an important ingredient for one's development. Without suffering, there's no development; and more importantly, there can't be happiness in absence of suffering. Though it's our nature to avoid suffering, but one needs to ensure that one doesn't shut oneself out of all experiences of life in order to just keep from all suffering.

Pain is to be avoided. Suffering is to be dealt with.

Misery is the state of suffering which has to be overcome. Suffering is healthy, but feeling miserable is not. The best way to avoid misery is philosophical development, i.e. understanding life and the causes of suffering.

The Latest "Where Have All the Good Men Gone" Article

Following are the comments made by one of the Reddit members on Where Have All the Good Men Gone. (Update: The woman seems to have deleted the article from her blog! Luckily I found the web cache on Google and copied it in time. Here it is.) Reposting from Reddit.


Comment One

You had better get used to it.

You need to examine your own illusions about yourselves and the lies you have been told, and the lies you tell yourselves. You say you want sweet sensitive men, but you fantasize about dangerous alpha rogues. You want equality but expect chivalry. You want sexual liberation but are surprised when men act in a sexually liberated manner.

As I said before.. men aren't disposable. You aren't entitled to benefit from our blood or our labour. Women and children first died when you started burning your bras. Now it's children first and you get to wait in line with men and go down with the ship. You open your own doors, pay for your own meals, carry your own boxes and change your own tires.. just like men.

Don't expect men to give you the gift of chivalry when you are competing with them for jobs and political power. You have your equality. Enjoy!

Want ideas for novels? How about an educated young professional woman who has a long and loyal romance with a boring, average, pudgy walmart greeter who works 14 hours a day to provide. He was falsely accused of rape, and now this is the only job he can find. He comes home so tired he has no time for grand gestures, but he is still a great guy and the rich woman sees this.

They marry and she settles down and becomes a housewife. She loves her lower status man so much she gives up everything, accepts a life of relative poverty to become his wife. They have 5 children and live happily ever after.

Or how about a woman who leaves her dashing adventurer husband for a dull but stolid sewer inspector who is balding and overweight.

You think they will sell?


Comment Two

If you want to understand the cause of this lack of "good men", you really just need to investigate the incentives. As in, what incentives are there for men to meet this "good man" standard, and are they sufficient to justify the risks and costs associated?

Really think about it, because out of all the "man up" articles that have come out in the last year or so (and there have been a few), none have done any serious examination of what, exactly, is in it for men to get with the program. None of the authors have actually really explored men's motivations here.

To be considered a good man, women expect men to get good high earning, high status jobs (generally BETTER jobs than the women they expect to land have), and then they expect them to commit to one women through marriage.

Here are the problems with those requirements.

1) With education and the workforce becoming more and more female focused (and dare I say it, male hostile) and with women becoming more successful in the workplace in their twenties (see any of the recent "women on top" cheerleading articles for reference) it requires a lot more effort for a man to exceed a women in this area to make himself marriage material. Because women generally won't see a man who makes less than them as being acceptable for marriage. (Be honest ladies, unless you're really evolved the thought of a guy who makes less than you doesn't jibe, does it?).

2) The roles of husband and father are hardly high status roles that men can be proud of any more. Think about it – how are husbands and fathers portrayed in society these days? On TV we have role models like Homer Simpson and Ray Barone, and the men on commercials who can't work out how to use basic household products. Idiots who would be helpless without their wives. Hen pecked men bossed around by women who know better. In churches and during fathers day speeches by President Obama, they are told how they aren't doing enough, how they must do better. After divorce, they are dead beats, who don't want to see their kids any more, and won't pay for them. They are abusers who so often beat wives and molest children. Feminists love to tell us how fathers are not needed at all, all they need is a mother. I think my dad is great and I'm for ever thankful for his influence in my life in so many ways, but if he hadn't been in my life I'd have no positive associations with the term at all.

3) Marriage is a huge financial and emotional risk for men. Over 50% of marriages will end in divorce, and women file for divorce more than men – the popular stats say 70% of the time. Women get custody of children in about 90% of cases, and with the kids come the marital home, alimony (where applicable) and child support. Men get all the debt, and visitations with their children every other weekend. For middle class or poorer men (and that's most of us), child support can leave them with barely enough money to live, and depending on jurisdiction it can be set beyond their ability to pay. Some jurisdictions also will imprison men who fail to meet their child support payments. Many men faced with the destruction of their lives through divorce often turn to or seriously consider suicide (odds are 2:1 that a man committing suicide is either divorced or in the process of divorce). How can men avoid these negative outcomes from divorce? Choose a good wife is about the best advice I've heard, although considering the number of divorced men I have heard state "I never thought she was capable of that" after getting screwed over, thats little comfort.

4) Women tend to ignore men with the qualities that will result in them being good "marriage material" when both are in their twenties. The reality is, becoming a "good man" requires that a man spend his twenties working hard to accumulate wealth, yet such a studious nature in men is generally regarded by most younger women as "no fun" and "not exciting". There is a rather funny (and by funny I mean really, really sad) example of this in the Hymowitz WSJ article, where comedian Julie Klausner, after spending her twenties "dating" rockers, pornographers and felons (paraphrasing her own words) suddenly finds in her thirties that there are no men around suitable for marriage. It's an unfortunate truth in this case that you get what you reward, and when the younger studious types see this type of behavior from young women, this rewarding of douchebags with sex and female attention, they quickly become fed up and take one of two paths. They either quickly realise that "studious" crap gets them nowhere and they stop with all that difficult career nonsense and start learning game from the PUAs so they can get laid, or they just forget about western women entirely (maybe they look overseas for a wife, or maybe they just swear off women entirely).

In essence, this is why western women can no longer find any good men. There is simply insufficient incentive for men to play that "good man" role for you. As a man I feel about as happy about this state of affairs as you do. I see this as having potentially disastrous effects on the future of our society. But at the same time I entirely understand why men are refusing to "man up", and I don't blame them at all for their choice, because it's entirely rational and in their best interest. (Well maybe apart from the extreme slackers – men should at minimum be supporting themselves and not relying on their parents.)

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Excellent comments!